At least 22 children were sexually abused by two priests at a school for youths with hearing disabilities in Argentina, an investigating prosecutor said Monday.

Police arrested 82-year old priest Nicola Corradi, 55-year-old priest Horacio Corbacho, and three other men last week. They are accused of sexual and physical child abuse at the Antonio Provolo Institute in northwestern Mendoza province ….

Corradi earlier had been accused in Italy of sexually abusing students at the Provolo Institute in Verona, a notorious school for the deaf where hundreds of children are believed to have been sexually assaulted over the years by two dozen priests and religious brothers ….

The association of Provolo victims in Italy wrote to Pope Francis on December 31, 2013, asking for assistance for the victims there, saying they still received no form of solidarity or support, even after the Vatican concluded they had been abused in 2012 ….

Members of the Provolo association met with the pope last year and asked for an independent commission to investigate. The Provolo group provided the AP with the letter from the Vatican dated February 5, 2016, in which the Vatican said it had forwarded the request to the Italian bishops’ conference, saying it was up to them to investigate.

“Words fail. It is appalling and heartbreaking that Corradi was not stopped by Pope Francis or by other Church authorities. Corradi’s presence at the school in Mendoza was no secret,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.

“Thanks to the Church’s inaction, Corradi appears to have been able to replicate exactly the grotesque situation he enjoyed in Verona – a ring of child molesters in charge of utterly defenseless children who could neither hear nor speak. If the allegations are true, the pope must accept responsibility for the unimaginable suffering of these new victims.”

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/informed-twice-about-sex-abuse-of-disabled-children-pope-francis-did-nothing/feed/3bettyclermontWith an Estimated $17B in Assets, Pope Francis Creates a “Day of the Poor”https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/with-an-estimated-17b-in-assets-pope-francis-creates-day-of-the-poor/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/with-an-estimated-17b-in-assets-pope-francis-creates-day-of-the-poor/#commentsSun, 27 Nov 2016 07:49:33 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=11904]]>The Vatican’s securities, commercial real estate and bank accounts are estimated at $16-18 billion, its bureaucrats are still engaged in financial fraud, corruption and possible money laundering and most of the donations to the pope for charity are withheld from the poor.

On Nov. 20, Pope Francis created an annual observance for a “Day of the Poor.” In an interview broadcast that same evening, he declared, “One must always struggle for a poor Church for the poor, according to the Gospel.”

An April 2015 article in the Italian financial news, Il Sole 24 Ore, stated the assets – securities, commercial real estate and bank accounts – of all the Vatican departments and offices combined “by a conservative estimate” would be around 15-17 billion euro (approx. $16-18 billion). No outsider can be sure because Pope Francis hides almost all his fortune from any independent audits or disclosures.

The Vatican’s September 2016 ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was dismissed as mere “window dressing” because the Holy See asserted it did not have to participate in any “mechanism or body to assist in the effective implementation of the Convention.” The UNCAC “covers a wide-range of corruption offences, including domestic and foreign bribery, embezzlement, trading in influence and money laundering.”

“As far as the Italian government is concerned, there is still a money laundering risk in the Vatican City State,” according to a May 2016 article. “Operations between the Vatican Bank (officially known as the Institute for Religious Works or IOR) and Italy’s banks have still not resumed fully,” referring to Vatican accounts frozen in Roman banks by the Italian government in 2010 for suspected money laundering.

Via letters dated April 12, 2016, to the Vatican’s 120 departments handling funds, the pope’s “right hand man,” Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, halted auditing being done by the international firm, Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC). “It seems evident that the pope is informed about the correspondence.” PwC was hired in December 2015 by the Secretariat for the Economy to audit the books and check if they were being kept according to international accounting standards. Only the IOR had previously begun using these standards and issuing public, audited financial reports during the previous pontificate in order to maintain “access to foreign financial markets.”

The office of the Secretary for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, issued a statement that “the so-called ‘concerns’ about the PwC audit and contract were only raised when auditors began asking for certain financial information and were finding it difficult to get answers.”

Then the Vatican announced that financial inspections would now be the responsibility of the pope’s own auditor general.

On July 9, Pope Francis issued a decree giving most of the powers of financial administration that he had previously vested in Pell to Cardinal Domenico Calgano. As of the date of the decree, “Calcagno is currently facing a criminal probe in his former diocese of Savona on suspicions of embezzlement.”

In a December 2015 report,“An independent group of European financial experts wants to see ‘some real results’ in terms of indictments and prosecutions at the Vatican Bank.” The Vatican’s own financial “watchdog,” the Financial Information Authority (FIA), had issued a report that 29 money laundering investigations were begun, 11 million euros ($12.1 million) in customer accounts had been frozen and 329 suspicious transactions were uncovered between January and September 2015. “The alleged offenses include fraud, tax evasion, corruption, bankruptcy, insider trading, and market manipulation” but not one financial “prosecution, conviction or confiscation” has taken place.

The Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, reported in November 2015 “the existence of at least a hundred IOR accounts, mostly encrypted in order to conceal the names of the people who opened and used them.” IOR management confirmed this was true and said the accounts would be frozen and closed. “That’s not how things went, however. Various deposit accounts, including those used for the transit of illicit proceeds, as documented by Italian judicial inquiries, are still operational …. Despite commitments to cooperate fully, widespread reticence has marked relations with [Italian] prosecutors in charge of investigations into accounts held with the IOR or links with other banks.”

The previous April, Italian magistrates were “expressing their dissatisfaction” that no work was being done by the IOR to counter money laundering.

A still unanswered petition by Serbian Orthodox Christian, Jewish, and Roma Holocaust survivors and their families was sent to the Vatican in February 2015 “imploring Pope Francis to settle the long standing dispute about gold looted during the Second World War and deposited at the Vatican Bank.” Evidence provided was from the US government’s WWII archives released in 1998. “The Vatican Financial Authority and the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy are accused of shirking their duties to investigate money laundering and in the case of the Vatican Financial Authority, misleading the European Commission which made inquiries on the Holocaust survivors’ behalf. The Vatican Financial Authority falsely claimed the Vatican Bank was not part of Vatican City and therefore did not fall under European Union anti money laundering rules.” An absurd claim. Pope Benedict XVI was forced, in part, to require the IOR to produce audited financial statements “as part of a push by the European Union to apply common rules to all the countries and micro-states like Vatican City and Monaco that use the euro [or] risk the Vatican’s access to the global banking system.”

In January 2015, “A top Swiss court rejected an appeal by the Vatican’s bank” which invoked sovereign immunity “to keep secret information from one of its Swiss bank accounts suspected of being used for fraud.”

Some actual documents revealed

Two books, Emilio Fittipaldi’s Avarice: Papers that Reveal Wealth, Scandals and Secrets in the Church of Francis.and Gianluigi Nuzzi’s Merchants in the Temple,* were both released on Nov. 5, 2015. “Fraud worth millions, the machinations of the Vatican Bank, the true extent of the pope’s treasury” and “offerings of the faithful withheld from charity, theft and trade scams” during the reign of Pope Francis were disclosed.

“The Vatican Bank hasn’t been cleaned up like we thought,” Fittipaldi said. “There are [bank accounts] of Italian entrepreneurs under investigation by Italian authorities still hiding inside.” Fittipaldi wrote that the IOR had still not turned over to the Bank of Italy (the country’s central bank) the list of Italian citizens who took funds out of the country to avoid paying taxes, despite promises to do so.

According to Fittipaldi, “the Vatican earns 60 million euro a year selling gas, cigarettes and other products at below-Italian-market prices” even to Italians with no Vatican connection, depriving Italy of tax revenue. Then “hundreds of people” resell cheap gasoline and cigarettes at great profit. “The Vatican museums and pharmacy showed serious discrepancies – amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars – between what appeared on the books and what was actually in storehouses, suggesting either systematic theft or fraud,” the author said.

Both Fittipaldi and Nuzzi wrote about Peter’s Pence. Once a year, bishops worldwide ask their parishioners to contribute money for the pope’s charity, although contributions can now be made online. For decades, the unaudited financial statements of the Vatican City State had shown the specific amount of this donation but that ended when Pope Francis was elected. Now, the statements are “nothing more than a press release.”

“Out of every 10 euro that come into the Vatican for the pope’s charity,” Nuzzi said, “six go to balance the accounts of the curia, two are deposited as reserves in a fund that today is up to almost 400 million euro, and only two end up in the pope’s hand to do charity.” This was confirmed by Parolin’s deputy, Archbishop Angelo Becciu.

The Peter’s Pence collection totaled 378 million euro in 2013, per Fittipaldi. IOR profits are also “offered the Holy Father in support of his apostolic and charitable ministry.” This was 50 million euro in 2013. Additionally, the pope receives “lavish donations” from celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and business moguls like Apple’s Tim Cook for his personal income.

Fittipaldi also revealed there are several accounts in the IOR designated for charity which give away nothing or very little. In 2013 and 2014, the fund available to the bank’s Commission of Cardinals headed by Cardinal Abril y Castelló, “a close friend” of Pope Francis, gave nothing to charity despite a net surplus of 425,000 euro.

Also, the Vatican has “invested in shares of Exxon and Dow Chemical,” corporations that pollute and poison. IOR president, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, confirmed on May 12, 2016, the bank’s continued “investments in fossil fuel companies.”

Pope Francis’ only Vatican trial has been about keeping financial records hidden

On Nov. 30, 2015, Pope Francis said he had given his court the “concrete charges” against Fittipaldi, Nuzzi and other defendants and a Vatican trial ensued. The two authors were indicted for “soliciting and exercising pressure” to obtain financial information from two members of a papal commission. The members, Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui, after being arrested with the pope’s “personal approval,” were accused of forming an “organized criminal association” with the aim of “committing several illegal acts of divulging documents.”

Cardinal Parolin was approved as a defense witness “as well as Francis confidantes Cardinal Santo Abril y Castello and Archbishop Konrad Krajewski. Krajewski is Francis’s point-man for charitable works while Spanish Cardinal Abril is a long-standing friend of the pontiff’s who last year was appointed as president of the commission overseeing the scandal-hit IOR …. The decision raises the prospect of the Church’s dirty linen being laundered in public.”

Inside the Vatican City-State, law is enforced only by order of the pope. Outside of the Vatican City-State, the IOR can operate only through foreign banks. It has ties with 40 “correspondent” banks in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan. (A correspondent is “a financial institution that provides services on behalf of another financial institution – facilitate wire transfers, conduct business transactions, accept deposits and gather documents.”) Additionally, “the IOR has financial relations with more than a hundred countries and has links with financial entities across the European Union.”

The IOR is not a regular bank in the sense that there are no check books nor does it make loans. Money deposited by account holders is invested and earns interest. “Everything is done by transfer, by cash or in gold bullion, so as to be untraceable. This is perfect for money-laundering” which is highly lucrative. (The main depository for the Vatican’s gold is the US Federal Reserve, while medals and precious coins are kept in IOR vaults.)

In an earlier report, the same independent group of European financial experts “pointed to high volumes of cash transactions, global activities and limited information on the many organizations operating in the Vatican.”

The process of screening 19,000 IOR accounts “in order to ensure anti-money laundering regulations are fully respected,” according to the Vatican, began in July 2013. Accountholders would be limited to “Catholic institutions, clergy, employees or former employees of the Vatican …. Relations with clients that do not fit one of these categories will cease.”

Pope Francis hired the Promontory Financial Group, “a Washington-based compliance consulting firm, to help identify suspicious transactions and close accounts that may have been used for money laundering and other illicit activities.” (see “Promontory’s activities focus heavily on the adept circumvention of regulations.”)

The IOR’s 2015 Annual Report stated there are now 14,801 customers – “approximately 75% of IOR customers are based in Italy and the Vatican, 15% in Europe ex Italy and the Vatican and 10% global ex Europe.” The pope’s newly appointed director general, Gian Franco Mammi, explained: “The closure of thousands of accounts happened primarily for other reasons [besides anti-money laundering],” either the account holder did not belong in one of the above categories, the account had been inactive for decades or the account held a “tiny amount.”

Being a “Catholic institution” or “clergy,” however, is no guarantee of honesty. Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, who was arrested by Italy in 2013 for “his role in a $22 million cash-smuggling scheme … used his IOR accounts to conceal the origins of his money.” An Italian magistrate reported that Scarano felt safe “thanks to his relations with the Vatican bank.” Scarano saw the IOR as “the only safe and rapid instrument for financial and banking operations that could evade – if not outright violate – laws against money laundering and tax evasion.”

In a 2013 Italian bank scandal, it was alleged that “four IOR accounts were opened for four religious organizations to hide the money made by five of the men” involved. The Vatican denied this.

In 2012, the Vatican removed the bishop of Trapani in Sicily during an investigation into possible shifting of funds through an IOR account opened by a local priest after the alleged illegal sale of church properties. Prosecutors suspected Sicilian Mafia involvement.

“In 2011, magistrates investigating a group of construction entrepreneurs suspected of paying off senior civil servants for contracts stumbled across a Rome priest who they alleged was parking large sums of cash in an IOR account on behalf of one of the contractors.”

Most Vatican funds are not in the IOR

Although the IOR has been more notorious, as Il Sole 24 Ore pointed out, the IOR has a net asset of less than €1 billion. The financial powerhouse is actually the Administration for the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), the Vatican’s “treasury,” the department which holds the lion’s share of the Vatican’s investments and commercial real estate.

APSA “has accounts and deposits of its own in central banks all over the world: the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Banca d’Italia, the Bank for International Settlements, ‘and others.’”

In his testimony before an Italian magistrate, Scarano, an APSA accountant, said the department “should not be a bank, but many times did banking relying on other banks.” APSA had secular “external customers” with “encrypted accounts.” The benefit was that they “paid less taxes and investments were safe, quiet.” Additionally, “APSA had liquid assets of 600-700 million euro, or perhaps even more, according to Scarano. “Money turned and went around the world where our superiors then went to see the management three or four times a year,” he said in court.

Scarano also spoke of APSA’s “speculative investments.” “We were investors of the securities industry, Nestlé or other international companies. We moved between the United States, Paris, London and other states,” he said.

Although duties and lines of responsibility have been shifted, so far Pope Francis’ financial “reform” was appointing men to watch over other men he appointed. Any wrongdoing is investigated by men he appointed but all final decisions rest solely with the pope.

If the pope wanted transparency, all his departments – including those with funds for his personal use – would be making public detailed financial statements audited by independent accountants.

If the pope wanted accountability, he could have hired independent forensic accountants such as those in the FBI or Interpol to root out sources of corruption.

If the pope wanted his Vatican to be more charitable, he could have hired people experienced in the finances of NGOs, non-profits or international charities to help him reform his finances rather than experts in vulture capitalism.

(Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

*Jn 2:13-16 Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/with-an-estimated-17b-in-assets-pope-francis-creates-day-of-the-poor/feed/2bettyclermontCatholic Bishops Doing a Happy Dance – For Nowhttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/catholic-bishops-doing-a-happy-dance-for-now/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/catholic-bishops-doing-a-happy-dance-for-now/#respondThu, 17 Nov 2016 10:09:42 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=12351]]>The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “looks forward to working with President-elect Trump to protect human life from its most vulnerable beginning, [a] commitment to domestic religious liberty, ensuring people of faith remain free to proclaim the truth about man and woman [anti-transgender dogwhistle], and the unique bond of marriage that they can form …. We are firm in our resolve that our brothers and sisters who are migrants and refugees can be humanely welcomed without sacrificing our security.”

Much of this echoes the Vatican’s statement that “points of dialogue” with Trump will include “internal [domestic] subjects such as religious freedom, Catholics’ commitment and attention to the most vulnerable bands of society.”

Martin R. Castro, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, recently stated: “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

Tuesday’s statement from the USCCB’s semi-annual meeting repeated that their pro-immigration efforts would “honor and respect the laws of this nation,” which mirrors what Pope Francis said on Nov. 1. “Migrants should be treated according to certain rules, because migration is a right, but one which is highly regulated” and “If a country is only able to integrate 20 [refugees], let’s say, then it should only accept that many.” the pope told reporters.

While maintaining a prohibition of not endorsing candidates by name, it was clear who the bishops were rooting for. Their video, “The Right to Religious Freedom,” released “in the lead-up to the 2016 elections” showed a clip of Hillary Clinton while a voice-over intoned that “the government is stopping us from practicing our faith.”

The bishops were silent when Pope Francis was planning a trip to the US border as part of his visit to Mexico and presidential candidate Trump said “I think that the pope is a very political person. I think Mexico got him to do it because they want to keep the border just the way it is.” Nor did they make any comment or backup when the pope said that those who build walls are “not Christians.”

But when Wikileaks released Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails on Oct. 11, the bishops’ reactions were hyperbolic, untrue and highly partisan. The emails had nothing whatsoever to do with Hillary Clinton or any political campaign and the bishops’ criticisms were mostly leveled at persons totally unconnected to the Clintons. The “intrusion” into Podesta’s email was “part of a wider inquiry into potential Russian cyberattacks.” They were written long before Podesta or Jennifer Palmieri became involved in the 2016 campaign (Palmieri was Clinton’s 2016 campaign communications director).

The first is dated in April 2011 from John Halpin to Podesta and Palmieri, all Catholic members of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Under the subject “Conservative Catholicism,” Halpin wrote, “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) … It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith.” Palmieri replied, “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.”

The second is dated in February 2012 from Sandy Newman, a non-Catholic president of Voices for Progress. She wrote to Podesta. “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church.” Newman adds: “I have not thought at all about how one would ‘plant the seeds of the revolution,’ or who would plant them.” Podesta replied: “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up.”

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, president of the USCCB, responded that some “sought to interfere in the internal life of the Church for short-term political gain.” We “expect public officials to respect the rights of people to live their faith without interference from the state …. Politicians, their staffs and volunteers should reflect our best aspirations as citizens. Too much of our current political discourse has demeaned women and marginalized people of faith.”

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan: “The emails of [not “by”] John Podesta, who is Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, are just extraordinarily patronizing, insulting to Catholics [and] offensive.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput, the eminence grise of the US episcopate and other right-wing Catholics, wrote about “the contemptuously anti-Catholic emails exchanged among members of the Clinton Democratic presidential campaign team …. The Clinton team emails are some of the worst bigotry by a political machine I have seen. A Church has an absolute right to protect itself when under attack [by] civil political forces … The current administration, with which these people share values, has been very hostile to religious organizations. Now there is clear proof that this approach is deliberate and will accelerate if these actors have any continuing, let alone louder, say in government .… We have political actors trying to orchestrate a coup to destroy Catholic values, and they even analogize their takeover to a coup in the Middle East, which amplifies their bigotry and hatred of the Church. [T]he choice facing voters in November: A vulgar, boorish lout and disrespecter of women with a serious impulse control problem [another pretense of bipartisanship]; or a scheming, robotic liar with a lifelong appetite for power and an entourage riddled with anti-Catholic bigots.”

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, Chaput’s hand-picked successor in Denver, while admitting an “aversion” to both candidates, wrote that the Democratic Party is “aggressively pro-abortion” while the GOP “just this year strengthened its support for life.” He repeated the religious right canard that Obamacare “requires provisions” for “abortifacients.” “[T]oo many Catholics … have condoned evil and the throw-away culture that Pope Francis frequently reminds us to reject,” Aquila wrote and he warns that “the government will become ‘god’ and impose its beliefs on the citizens.” Therefore, “Catholic voters must make themselves aware [that] the right to life is the most important and fundamental right.”

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin wrote that Tim Kaine “has been widely identified as a Roman Catholic” but “he publicly supports ‘freedom of choice’ for abortion, same-sex marriage, gay adoptions, and the ordination of women as priests …. All of these positions are clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings; all of them have been opposed by Pope Francis as well,” Tobin wrote. “[H]is faith isn’t central to his public, political life,” Tobin concluded.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann: “[T]he Catholic running for the second highest office in our land is an orthodox member of his party, fully embracing his party’s platform, but a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing the teachings of the Catholic Church that are politically convenient.”

In an Oct. 20 speech, the astute Chaput said, “Even many people who despise what Mr. Trump stands for seem to enjoy his gift for twisting the knife in America’s leadership elite and their spirit of entitlement, embodied in the person of Hillary Clinton.” The archbishop continued that the “price of entry” into the “leadership elite” for “people like Nancy Pelosi, Anthony Kennedy, Joe Biden and Tim Kaine ” has been the transfer “of real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new ‘Church’ of our ambitions and appetites.”

Chaput also repeated the sentiment often attributed to Pope Benedict XVI: “We should never be afraid of a smaller, lighter Church if her members are also more faithful, more zealous, more missionary and more committed to holiness. Making sure that happens is the job of those of us who are bishops. Losing people who are members of the Church in name only is an imaginary loss. It may in fact be more honest for those who leave and healthier for those who stay. We should be focused on commitment, not numbers or institutional throw-weight.”

On Tuesday, the bishops elected Cardinal Daniel DiNardo as their president. DiNardo previously was the chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities. DiNardo “has found the US government to be ‘coercive’ in restricting religious liberty,” citing Obamacares’ provision that employers provide coverage for birth control.

Archbishop Jose Gomez was elected vice-president. He was Chaput’s auxiliary bishop and protégé from 2001 to 2011 and another active anti-abortion advocate. He sponsored a “massive pro-life conference” in Los Angeles with “busses” bringing “thousands” to the event. Gomez also sponsored the conference in Rome supporting the canonization of Junipero Serra during which Pope Francis called the friar “one of America’s founding fathers.”

Trump won the Catholic vote

Trump won the highest percentage of Catholic voters for a Republican candidate (52%) since 2004 with both whites (60%) and Latinos (26%) casting more ballots for Trump than for Romney in 2012. Exit polls showed 23% of voters identified as Catholic.

Every poll conducted during the campaign (here, here, here and here) showed Catholics choosing Trump at percentages higher than the general electorate.

Unfortunately, the exit polling didn’t ask if abortion, same-sex marriage or the current anti-transgender issues effected the voting. Voters were asked to choose only among the economy, terrorism, foreign policy and immigration as factors.

Pew did a survey Aug 16 – Sept. 12 about “contraception, same-sex marriage and transgender rights” which “have highlighted the growing tension between protecting religious liberty and guaranteeing nondiscrimination,” but didn’t ask how decisive these issues would be on how the respondents would vote.

So how much of a role religion played in the 2016 election will remain speculation. All we know for sure is that the Religious Right opposed Trump in the primaries although most of their leaders, like many other Republicans, came around to supporting Trump after the conventions.

Statistics not favorable for the USCCB

A poll on religion conducted in August showed that while nearly one-third (31.2 %) of Americans report being raised in a Catholic household, only about one in five (20.9%) Americans currently identify as Catholic. The loss of 10.3% was highest among all religious denominations. “Notably, those who were raised Catholic are more likely than those raised in any other religion to cite negative religious treatment of gay and lesbian people (39% and 29%, respectively) and the clergy sexual-abuse scandal (32% and 19% respectively) as primary reasons they left the Church.”

A survey done in mid-June showed that white Catholics are now only 13% of registered voters – Latinos are 5%, others 2%.

Although we don’t know if Chaput calling the loss of what he considers to be “members-in-name-only” an “imaginary loss” is sour grapes, the US episcopate is likely concerned about the diminishing of their “institutional throw-weight.” The weight and funding needed in their anti-women, anti-LGBTQ legislative campaigns – not to mention their on-going state legislative battles against amendments providing justice to victims of rape and sexual assaults – is at stake.

The bishops cannot depend on Latinos to continue filling their increasingly empty pews. While Latinos made up about one-quarter of US Catholics in the 1980s, in 2013 (the latest figures available) Latinos constituted 40% of the Catholic population. The bad news for the episcopate is that, in 2013, 55% of Latino adults identified as Catholic but that figure was “down from 67% as recently as 2010” and “nearly one-in-four Latino adults (24%) are now former Catholics.”

Latinos will notice the bishops’ hedging their pro-immigration statements with phrases such as “without sacrificing our security” and “honor and respect the laws of this nation.” All the while, it is the civil Democratic administrations of cities such as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and others who defy federal law to offer sanctuary – which has its roots in religious institutions providing refuge – to their undocumented populations, not the bishops.

What One Christian Sounds Like

Part of the opinion expressed by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, after the election:

Political power – or the illusion of it – has not always been good for us. Such influence has led us to conform our minds to that of the world about what matters, and who matters, in the long-run of history. We should, as missionary Jim Elliot put it a generation ago, own our “strangerhood.”

What can we do now? We can, first of all, maintain a prophetic clarity that is willing to call to repentance everything that is unjust and anti-Christ, whether that is the abortion culture, the divorce culture, or the racism/nativism culture. We can be the people who tell the truth, whether it helps or hurts our so-called “allies” or our so-called “enemies.”

Moreover, no matter what the racial and ethnic divisions in America, we can be churches that demonstrate and embody the reconciliation of the kingdom of God. After all, we are not just part of a coalition but part of a Body – a Body that is white and black and Latino and Asian, male and female, rich and poor. We are part of a Body joined to a Head who is an Aramaic-speaking Middle-easterner. What affects black and Hispanic and Asian Christians ought to affect white Christians. And the sorts of poverty and social unraveling among the white working class ought to affect black and Hispanic and Asian Christians. We belong to each other because we belong to Christ.

Priests are chosen as bishops, bishops elevated to cardinal, not for their devotion to Jesus but for their fealty and loyalty to the institutional Church and its leader. As head of that Church, Pope Francis created first a Secretariat for (his) Economy and then a Secretariat for (PR) Communications. There is actually a Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in the Vatican which has been completely overlooked in this pontificate.

(Betty Clermont is author of The NeoCatholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/catholic-bishops-doing-a-happy-dance-for-now/feed/0bettyclermontVatican Will “Dialogue” with Trump on Anti-Gay and Anti-Women Issueshttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/vatican-will-dialogue-with-trump-on-anti-gay-and-anti-women-issues/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/vatican-will-dialogue-with-trump-on-anti-gay-and-anti-women-issues/#commentsSun, 13 Nov 2016 10:16:14 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=12049]]>Pope Francis’ right-hand man, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said on Thursday that “points of dialogue” between the Vatican and Trump will include peace and “internal [domestic] subjects such as religious freedom and Catholics’ commitment and attention to the most vulnerable bands of society.”

“Religious freedom” is the euphemism justifying anti-gay discrimination. “Most vulnerable” is a common phrase used in anti-abortion rhetoric.

In an Oct. 27 interview on EWTN television, “an influential TV operation now broadcast to 264 million households around the world,” Trump promised to appoint “pro-life” Supreme Court justices. On religious freedom, Trump said, “Whether it’s the Little Sisters of the Poor or, you know, these private businesses who are religiously motivated, they feel this Obamacare mandate, which demands contraceptive and abortifacient services, as part of insurance is intrusive …. I mean, religious liberty in this country is in tremendous trouble.”

In a Sept. 22 statement on “ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE TO CATHOLICS” Trump promised to sign the First Amendment Defense Act which bans the government from taking any “action against a person [who] believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” “The broadly-written law would legalize religious discrimination against LGBT people in all sectors, from employment to retail to healthcare, banning the government from intervening.”

The following day, Trump named 33 “heavyweight” Catholic advisers to his campaign, including Republican former Sen. Rick Santorum and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

Trump won the Catholic vote 52% to Hillary Clinton’s 45% including a higher percentage of Latino Catholics (26%) than had voted for Romney in 2012 (21%).

Since losing the 2008 presidential election, US Catholic bishops have made “religious liberty” their most important issue in obstructing health care for women as well as denying human rights to LGBT persons. During last year’s trip to the US, Pope Francis supported their cause in speeches at the White House and Independence Hall. His visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor encouraging their lawsuit against coverage for contraception provided by Obamacare, as well as his private meeting with Kim Davis, jailed six days for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, also assisted his bishops.

Before meeting with Davis, Pope Francis had called same-sex marriage an “anthropological regression.” According to the Liberty Counsel, the pope and Davis “chatted about bravery.” During the flight back to Rome from the US, the pope said “government officials have a ‘human right’ to refuse to do their job if they feel it violates their religious conscience, such as issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.”

Pope Francis also rejected equality for LGBT persons in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’ (no. 155), and his exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia (nos. 56, 251, 285-286). The pope issued a joint denouncement of same-sex marriage with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in February 2016. On Sept. 25, the pope encouraged the Mexican bishops’ opposition to Pres. Pena Nieto’s proposal to recognize same-sex marriage.

Some consensus also on migrants, climate change and the poor.

On Thursday, Trump adviser Newt Gingrich “cast doubt” on whether Trump would actually build a wall on our southern border. “He’ll spend a lot of time controlling the border. He may not spend very much time trying to get Mexico to pay for it, but it was a great campaign device,” Gingrich said. When asked about Trump’s intention to build a wall, Cardinal Parolin advised, “Let’s give him time to begin.”

In his EWTN interview, Trump said Syrian refugees should be properly vetted and he would stop accepting them until this was done. On Sept. 1, Pope Francis said “Migrants should be treated according to certain rules, because migration is a right but one which is highly regulated” and “if a country is only able to integrate 20 [refugees], let’s say, then it should only accept that many.”

Emilio Fittipaldi, author of Avarice: Papers that Reveal Wealth, Scandals and Secrets in the Church of Francis, said the Vatican is “invested in shares of Exxon and Dow Chemical,” corporations that pollute and poison. Vatican Bank president, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, confirmed on May 12, 2016, the bank’s continued “investments in fossil fuel companies.”

Trump used $258,000 from his charitable foundation in ways that “may have violated laws against ‘self-dealing‘ which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.”

Both Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi in his book, Merchants in the Temple, wrote about Peter’s Pence, the annual collection by bishops around the world for the pope’s charity. Only 20% is given to charity, according to Nuzzi. The rest goes into the Vatican bureaucracy. A Vatican official confirmed this is true.

Fittipaldi wrote that the Peter’s Pence collection totaled 378 million euro in 2013. (Pope Francis stopped reporting this figure after he was elected.) Vatican Bank profits are also “offered the Holy Father in support of his apostolic and charitable ministry.” This was 50 million euro in 2013. Additionally, the pope receives “lavish donations” from celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and business moguls like Apple’s Tim Cook for his personal income with no transparency or accountability.

Fittipaldi also revealed there are several accounts in the Vatican Bank designated for charity which give away nothing or very little. In 2013 and 2014, the fund available to the bank’s Commission of Cardinals gave nothing to charity despite a net surplus of 425,000 euro.

Pope Francis has no problem supporting the right-wing

“Conservatives Around The World Are Peddling A Conspiracy Theory About Sex and Gender” is the title of an article about “gender ideology.” This “has been a very effective communication and persuasion tool. It helps its ‘fighters’ to avoid overtly homophobic language – which is prohibited by law in some countries -and to frame their arguments in secular terms.”

When asked in January 2015 to explain what he meant by “ideological colonization,” Pope Francis gave the example of a minister of education. In order to receive a loan to build schools, she had to use a textbook on “gender theory.” “This is ideological colonization,” he said. A few months later, the pope explained that “gender theory” is that “which seeks to cancel out sexual differences.”

“Pope Francis’ blistering attacks on ‘gender theory’… may be emboldening Catholic bishops in various parts of the world.” In August, the pontiff said, “In Europe, America, Latin America, Africa, and in some countries of Asia, there are genuine forms of ideological colonization taking place. And one of these - I will call it clearly by its name - is [the ideology of] ‘gender.’ Today children - children! - are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex.”

When Chileans protested Pope Francis’ appointment of a bishop accused of “covering up of dozens of sexual abuse cases,” he dismissed them as “lefties” in an October 2015 private video.

Like his American confreres who use “moral issues” to oppose progressive government, as cardinal primate of Argentine, Jorge Mario Bergoglio had “clashed with the Kirchner administration sharply over issues of abortion, contraception and sex education.” Kirchner called Bergoglio the “spiritual head of the political opposition.” Kirchner also “castigated the Church for its willingness to accommodate the military regime during the 1970s and early 1980s,” as had Bergoglio when he was a Jesuit provincial. (See here, here, here, here and here.)

The Fernandez administration’s relationship with Bergoglio was “strained due to her support for same-sex marriage and the leftism of her administration.” A week before the vote on legislation approving same-sex marriage, Bergoglio wrote a pastoral letter “harshly criticizing the initiative.” The legislation was a “’move’ by the father of lies [Satan] meant to confuse and deceive the children of God,” he wrote.

In 2012, Fernandez “pushed for mandatory sex education in schools, free distribution of contraceptives in public hospitals, and the right for transsexuals to change their official identities on demand.” Bergoglio accused the president of “demagoguery, totalitarianism, corruption and efforts to secure unlimited power.”

After the cardinal was elected pope, Brazilian Ivone Gebara, one of Latin America’s leading theologians, referred to his “well-known criticism of liberation theology. [I]n the informal pre-conclave discussions, Bergoglio’s profile as a Jesuit known for resisting the liberalizing currents in the order in Latin America during the 1970s was a selling point.” Gebara also reminded us that handouts to the poor is not the same as correcting the underlying causes of poverty.

If some of the above information about the Vatican and Pope Francis is news to you, blame the same for-profit media that catapulted Trump to front-runner status in the primaries for creating a “superstar” pope to generate more advertising revenue.

(Betty Clermont is author of The NeoCatholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/vatican-will-dialogue-with-trump-on-anti-gay-and-anti-women-issues/feed/2bettyclermontHow Pope Francis Helped Defeat the Colombian Peace Agreementhttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/how-pope-francis-helped-defeat-the-colombian-peace-agreement/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/how-pope-francis-helped-defeat-the-colombian-peace-agreement/#commentsSun, 30 Oct 2016 08:20:09 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=11669]]>Pope Francis refused multiple requests for his participation or presence during the peace process. He also advocated the ideology and vocabulary for those who opposed the peace agreement.

In April 2015, Pope Francis’ secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sent a letter to Colombian bishops on behalf of the pope “in the hope of seeing them soon during one of his trips to Latin America.” (Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in July 2015, Cuba in September 2015, Mexico in February 2016). Archbishop Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, president of the Colombian bishops’ conference, said he hoped it would be in “early 2016 …. This date was tentatively picked as it should coincide with the eventual ratification of the peace agreement should it be completed on time.”

[As of April 2015] in the peace talks which the government of President Juan Manuel Santos has held since October of 2012 with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s oldest insurgency group that has been in existence since 1964, there is ample progress.

The talks were started in hopes of ending a conflict that has claimed more than 220,000 lives in over half a century of violence, and displaced several million more ….

Although there is opposition from the most conservative sectors, led by former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) who is the most outspoken opponent of the peace talks and a man with links to illegal right-wing paramilitary groups and sectors of the Armed Forces, the overwhelming majority of the populace supports an end to the violence and the beginning of a new stage of peace.

Given that practically all of the politically conservative figures and groups in the nation that oppose the peace talks are devout Catholics, Pope Francis’ visit could sway them to change their minds.

President Santos met with Pope Francis in June 2015. The pope told Santos “he was available to help in the peace process in Colombia …. The Holy Father told me: ‘If you need us to play a role, we are ready to do so,’ something that pleases us, because he is currently … the most authoritative voice in the world,” the president said. “[T]he Church would be available to help in the process with victims as well,” Santos added.

The following month, Pope Francis was asked: “Seeing how well the mediation went between Cuba and the U.S., do you think it would it be possible to do something similar between other delicate situations in other countries on the Latin American continent? I’m thinking of Venezuela and Colombia.” He responded by admitting that, as far as his involvement was concerned, “The process between Cuba and the U.S. was not mediation …. It happened by itself. It was the goodwill of the two countries, and the merit is theirs, the merit is theirs for doing this. We did hardly anything, only small things.”* As regards the Colombian peace process, “we are always willing to help, in many ways,” the pope declared.

However, when representatives of FARC asked to meet Pope Francis during his scheduled trip to Cuba in September, the Vatican declined.

Three days later, a Vatican representative stated that “the shape and form that the contribution to the peace process will take, still needs to be worked out.” Castro Quiroga, president of the bishops’ conference, said Pope Francis proposed that a Vatican observer be assigned to the peace negotiations. “Both parties, the government and the FARC must agree to the acceptance of this figure,” he added. For now, “a public statement, a blessing … this is what the FARC are hoping for.”

And that is all they got.

On Sept. 20, 2015, in Havana, Cuba, “Pope Francis prayed for the ongoing negotiations between FARC rebels and the Colombian government happening in Cuba right now saying that ‘another failure’ is not an option.” Santos “issued a tweet in response to thank the pope ‘for your permanent prayers.’”

Castro Quiroga announced in January 2016 that Pope Francis would be visiting Colombia in the first or second trimester of 2017. The archbishop explained the pope “will not condition his visit to the peace process because he will be with the Colombians with or without a peace process.”

February 2016: Pope Francis told a Colombian reporter that he would go “but only if the peace talks advance.”

April 2016: FARC Commander-in-Chief Timoleon Jimenez “published an open letter to Argentine Pope Francis calling for assistance in the on-going peace process.” There was no response from the Vatican or the pope.

August 2016: The pope declined an invitation by Santos “to help pick judges for a transitional justice tribunal in the event a peace deal with FARC rebels is approved by the people.” The Vatican responded, “[I]t it would be more appropriate that this task would be entrusted to other bodies.” To be fair, “The post-conflict justice system is controversial [and] has been fiercely criticized by both Colombia’s conservative opposition and Human Rights Watch.”

September 2016: Santos said “Pope Francis will visit his country in the first quarter of next year. The pope promised in February to visit Colombia if the country’s government and rebels signed a peace treaty …. The treaty was signed on Monday, though it still must be ratified by voters.”

October 2, 2016, Pope Francis: “I have said that when the peace process [in Colombia]… if it succeeds, I would like to go, when everything is ‘airtight.’ In other words, when everything – if the referendum is successful – when everything is safe, that there will be no going back and the international community, all the nations, are in agreement, that there will be no appeal, when everything is over… In this case, I could go. But if things are unstable … It all depends on what the people say.”

____

A sub-commission to the peace negotiation on gender had convened in September 2014. On July 24, 2016, they released a statement, “The inclusion of a gender approach … seeks to create the conditions for women and people with diverse sexual identity to have equal opportunity access to the benefits of living in a country without an armed conflict.”

The peace treaty was narrowly rejected by voters on October 5. This was generally attributed to over-confidence in the turnout for the YES vote which kept some from the polls, and opposition to “a transitional justice system that would have allowed rebel fighters who cooperated to avoid jail time and a concession of political power to FARC.”

However, since the treaty stated the need to include “people with different sexual orientations and gender identities,” several commentators attributed at least part of the defeat to:

“A crucial element of the propaganda [for the NO campaign] was the myth that the peace deal would have implied the imposition of a ‘gender ideology’ that could have shattered the traditional heterosexual family unit.”

“Evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics were convinced the accord was a threat to traditional family values as it recognized the rights of gays, lesbians and transgender people …. Vote No campaign manager Luís Carlos Vélez acknowledged that their strategy focused on whipping up indignation among these voters.”

“Senator Roy Barreras acknowledged the role Christians [seeking to uphold their unreserved opposition to the gender ideology] played in influencing the referendum result.”

Colombians are 79% Catholic, 13% Protestant. “[A]nalysts reiterate that the ‘no’ campaign backed in the name of the family, mustered consensus among parishes and Catholic organizations and movements.”

“At the same time that peace was being negotiated,” in August 2016 “the Colombian government released a new manual for teachers in public schools, with education material designed to help prevent discrimination and bullying against lesbian and gay students.”

As a result, “Pope Francis’ blistering attacks on ‘gender theory’… is emboldening Catholic bishops in Colombia.” Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez urged participation in an August 10 rally against the new manual. “We reject the implementation of gender ideology in Colombian education because it’s a destructive ideology. [It] destroys the human being, taking away its fundamental principle of the complementary relationship between man and woman,” Salazar said. “Individual rights can’t go against the rights of the community,” the cardinal declared.

The nationwide protests organized by the Standard-Bearers of the Family (Abanderados por la Familia) “were endorsed by the nation’s Catholic bishops as well as Evangelical leaders, who called upon the faithful to manifest their rejection of the gay agenda and to defend the family.”

Former president and current Senator Álvaro Uribe – “not coincidentally, the leader of the opposition to the peace accords” – actively opposed the manual. “The uribistas campaigned against what they framed as attempts to promote a ‘confused gender ideology’ …. ‘Saying that one is not born female or male, but that this is defined by society, is an abuse of minors, a disrespect of nature and of the family,’ Uribe stated.”

A week earlier, Pope Francis had expressed a strikingly similar view: “In Europe, America, Latin America, Africa, and in some countries of Asia, there are genuine forms of ideological colonization taking place. And one of these – I will call it clearly by its name – is [the ideology of] ‘gender.’ Today children – children! – are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex …. God created man and woman; God created the world in a certain way…. This is the age of sin against God the Creator.”

When asked to explain what he meant by “ideological colonization” in January 2015, Pope Francis gave the example of a minister of education. In order to receive a loan to build schools, she had to use a textbook on “gender theory.” “This is ideological colonization,” he said. In April 2015, Pope Francis explained that “gender theory” is that “which seeks to cancel out sexual differences.”

Pope Francis had assumed leadership in the global effort to deny LGBTQ persons’ human rights in November 2014. He hosted a Vatican conference with representatives from 14 religious traditions and 23 countries on “the complementarity of man and woman” at which he gave the opening address. Attendees included:

Rick Warren, the evangelical leader, declared, “Marriage can only be between a man and a woman…. The Church must not cave in,” He “called on non-Catholic Christians to join with Pope Francis.”

Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention: “I am willing to go anywhere, when asked, to bear witness to what we as evangelicals believe about marriage and the gospel, especially in times in which marriage is culturally imperiled.”

Alan Sears, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, “actively worked to promote and defend anti-sodomy laws that criminalize gay sex.” Sears said Pope Francis’ planned U.S. visit comes “at a time when the debate on marriage is so fierce [and] could be the opportunity those fighting for traditional marriage have been waiting for.”

Pope Francis also rejected equality for LGBTI persons in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’ (no. 155), and his exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia (nos. 56, 251, 285-286). The pope issued a joint denouncement of same-sex marriage with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in February 2016.

In August 2016, a law prohibiting all “degrading” and “discriminatory” statements regarding homosexuals and transsexuals was passed in the Province of Madrid. Bishop Demetrio Fernández said “gender ideology is an atomic bomb that seeks to destroy Catholic doctrine and the image of God in man and the image of God the Creator.” (Pope Francis had compared transgender persons to nuclear weapons, saying both do not “recognize the order of creation.”)

In September 2016, “gender ideology” was a “hot topic” when 106 papal ambassadors gathered in Rome.

When “tens of thousands” of Mexicans marched to protest the President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal to recognize same-sex marriage in September 2016, Cardinal José Francisco Robles, president of the bishops’ conference, said, “The proliferation of the mentality of gender ideology moves with a flag of acceptance, promoting the values of diversity and non-discrimination, but it denies the natural reciprocity between a man and a woman.” After mass on Sept. 25, Pope Francis voiced his support of the Mexican bishops’ role in supporting the march.

President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 9. The same day Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez of Bogotà said, “For sure, the pope will come next year.”

In a Sept. 30 videomessage “Pope Francis explained that he will not be able to visit his homeland in 2017 because he has ‘other engagements in Asia and Africa.’ He did not specify which countries he will visit nor did he say if he will visit other American countries like Colombia or Peru.” In fact, the Vatican has not yet issued an official 2017 travel schedule for the pope outside of Italy.

(Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

*Re: Cuba/U.S. In 2009, Pres. Obama “helped reunite divided Cuban families, improved communication between the countries and helped humanitarian aid to the island.” In 2011, he took action “allowing many Americans to travel there for the first time and increasing the amounts that they can invest in the island.” In 2010, Pres. Castro “announced sweeping reforms to open up the island’s economy, allowing more Cubans to own their own businesses and to buy and sell property.” In 2012, “Cuba passed a new immigration law that lifted long-standing travel restrictions; it also permitted Cubans living in Miami to visit without overt stigma or sanction.” In December 2014, “after five decades of Cold War enmity and eighteen months of secret talks, the United States and Cuba announced that they had agreed to normalize relations.”

On Aug. 26, the pope announced his intentions for the 50th World Day of Peace to be celebrated on Jan. 1, 2017. He included “recognition of the primacy of diplomacy,” acting “within what is possible,” and having “a realistic political method.”

Two days earlier, the pontiff’s chosen Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “remarked that it is ‘the simplicity and courage with which the pope proposes the primacy of dialogue and understanding’ that has sparked in many religious and political leaders ‘the desire to communicate with him and to get to know the actions of the Holy See and the Catholic Church worldwide better.’” Parolin is so confident that other world leaders admire Pope Francis’ “negotiations and dialogue rather than affirming truth” that he is considering creating an Office for Papal Mediation.

Pope Francis positioned himself as Putin’s ally early in his pontificate. Although the massacre of civilians had been ongoing since the day he was elected, the pontiff held a peace rally for Syria only after Pres. Obama proposed a limited air strike to deter the further use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Putin had said it was “utter nonsense” that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had used chemical weapons and he “warned the U.S. against launching military action in Syria, stating that Russia has ‘plans’ on how it would react if such a scenario unfolded.”

Pope Francis wrote a letter to Putin, host of the G-20 summit held on the eve of his Sept. 7, 2013, rally, “urging world leaders to oppose a military intervention in Syria.” During the rally, the pope “spoke out against an attack in Syria.”

“Moscow was pleased after Francis opposed a proposed U.S.-led military intervention in Syria, a key Russian ally.”

Pope Francis had “quite a cordial and constructive meeting,” with Putin in November 2013. The Russian president has continued to support al-Assad’s “extermination” of his civilian population.

On Feb. 4, 2015, the pontiff called “the conflict between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists ‘fratricidal.” Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, said the pope’s statement was “particularly painful for all the people in Ukraine …. This conflict, said Shevchuk, is the result of what he called a foreign invasion.” With roughly 6 million adherents, the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine is the largest of the 22 Eastern Rite Churches in communion with the pope. It is the second largest religion in the country after the Christian orthodox and three and a half times larger than the Roman Catholic Church.

Adding insult to injury, when Shevchuk and other Ukrainian prelates met with Pope Francis two weeks later, he told them “to stay out of political debates and focus their energies on caring for their people and in reaffirming Christian values.” By this time, “the United Nations said that more than 5,665 people are believed to have died in the fighting.”

Putin was “not welcome at the June 7-8, 2015, G7 summit meeting thanks to his government’s continued incursions into Ukraine’s territory. But two days after the meeting of Western powers in Germany, the Russian leader had his second meeting with Pope Francis.” According to the Vatican, “Pope Francis stressed the ‘need to commit oneself in a sincere and great effort to achieve peace,’ adding that both men ‘agreed on the importance of reconstructing a climate of dialogue and that all sides commit themselves to implementing the Minsk accords’ (a ceasefire that lasted only a few months). Also stressed was the need to address the serious humanitarian situation in Ukraine. Regarding the conflicts in the Middle East, both men discussed the situation in Iraq and Syria.”

Between his first and second meeting with Putin, “some 1.2 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced according to the United Nations humanitarian office [while] Pope Francis is working to build diplomatic relations with Russia … especially to advance some of the Vatican’s other diplomatic interests.”

A meeting between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill was scheduled for Feb. 12, 2016, in Cuba.

The meeting “could not happen without a green light from Putin, diplomats and analysts say, and he may be one the beneficiaries. Putin has aligned himself closely with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), making Friday’s two-hour private meeting not just a religious event but politically charged as well, especially when Russia is at odds with the West over Ukraine and Syria. ‘Putin clearly sees the value of his relationship with the ROC and the ROC’s relationship with the pope,’ said a diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

Feb. 15 The Economist: “Did the pope just kiss Putin’s ring? Russia wants its people to believe that Western republics are not as hostile as their leaders. Pope Francis just helped.” The meeting with Kirill “is a diplomatic victory” for Russia’s government.

Francis made clear in his interview before the meeting that on certain issues he agrees with Mr Putin and disagrees with America and its allies ….

The meeting with Francis has helped to underscore Russia’s renewed standing as a global power. Mr Putin’s spokesman called it “a mutual step forward” between Russia and the West …. For Russia’s government, “it is a diplomatic victory.”

The joint declaration issued after the meeting hewed close to the Kremlin’s positions on the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine ….

Francis has been sensitive toward Mr Putin’s view of the conflict [in the Ukraine]. The joint declaration deplores “hostility” in Ukraine, but omits any mention of Russia’s role, casting it as an internal struggle.

Many Ukrainians saw Mr Putin’s hand at work. Miroslav Marinovich, vice-rector of the Catholic University in Lviv, said that the sections relating to Ukraine were “obviously written in the Kremlin.” Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, went even further. The members of his church, he said, felt “betrayed by the Vatican.”

“At the moment, Russia’s diplomatic situation is isolated. Relations with Turkey are very poor … Many in the international community oppose Russia’s strong support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Facing this diplomatic isolation, Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Pope Francis in Rome two times in three years …. In the end, ‘the meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis shows that Russia is open, and that the Pope is close and sensitive to Russia,’ a source close to the patriarchate said.”

The day after the meeting, Slovenia-born Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic was appointed as the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations and Specialized Agencies in Geneva as well as the World Trade Organization. Jurkovic was the pope’s ambassador to Russia and Uzbekistan since 2011. Given Jurkovic’s experience, “some believe his appointment aims to assist in the rapprochement between the Catholic Church and Moscow.”

“Russian operation in Syria is our salvation,” Bishop Georges Abou Khazen, the vicar of Aleppo, stated after the pope’s meeting with Kirill. Khazen was appointed by Pope Francis in 2013. “Russia makes a very positive impact by stimulating the negotiations process, and promotes dialogue between various Syrian groups,” Khazen said

In July 2016, new laws were enacted in Russia banning religious proselytizing outside of specially designated places. “The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned the new laws [which will] buttress the Russian government’s war against human rights and religious freedom.” Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and chair of the commission, said after the measures were passed. “They will make it easier for Russian authorities to repress religious communities, stifle peaceful dissent, and detain and imprison people.”

Raul Castro

At the time of his meeting with Pope Francis, Patriarch Kirill was in Cuba at the invitation of Pres. Castro “to celebrate the historic ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the island nation, a result of Cuba’s historical alliance with Russia.” It was reported on Oct. 7, 2016, that “Russia is considering plans to restore military bases in Vietnam and Cuba that had served as pivots of Soviet global military power during the Cold War.”

“We now know that the meeting with Kirill in Cuba was already on the Pope Francis’s agenda” when he visited Cuba in September 2015, “as well as being on that of Raúl Castro and Putin.” The previous May, Castro had met in Moscow with Putin and Kirill and then flew directly to a private meeting with Pope Francis.

At the end of that audience, Castro “wished to say ‘Thank you’ to the Holy Father for his active role in the development of the improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States of America.” At a later meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Castro said, “If the pope continues to speak like this, sooner or later I will start praying again and I will return to the Catholic Church.” (He hasn’t.)

The media touted Pope Francis as having played a “crucial role,” a “key role” and “brokering the restoration of relations between Cuba and the U.S.” But when asked directly by a reporter, Pope Francis said, “The process between Cuba and the United States … happened by itself. It was the goodwill of the two countries and the merit is theirs for doing this.”

Yes. In 2009, Pres. Obama “helped reunite divided Cuban families, improved communication between the countries and helped humanitarian aid to the island.” In 2011, he took action “allowing many Americans to travel there for the first time and increasing the amounts that they can invest in the island.” In 2010, Pres. Castro “announced sweeping reforms to open up the island’s economy, allowing more Cubans to own their own businesses and to buy and sell property.” In 2012, “Cuba passed a new immigration law that lifted long-standing travel restrictions; it also permitted Cubans living in Miami to visit without overt stigma or sanction.” In December 2014, “after five decades of Cold War enmity and eighteen months of secret talks, the United States and Cuba announced that they had agreed to normalize relations.”

Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church is accommodating the Castro regime. Two editors of a Catholic magazine promoting “debate on political issues” stated in their 2014 resignation letter that “they left not because of government pressure but due to pressure from people inside the Church hierarchy who did not want the Church to get involved in politics.”

Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega “has been widely criticized – both within Cuba and abroad – for his passive and collaborationist attitude toward the government.” Two months before Pope Francis’ September 2015 trip to Cuba, a blogger denounced Ortega, “who, if aware of the daily concerns of our people, has no will to address them. To remain silent before irrefutable facts is unheard-of.” There are still political prisoners and “new prisoners of conscience are being added to the list.” The repression of active dissidents “is actually being stepped up as greater challenges are posed to the authorities. Faced with such truths, the cardinal responds with silence.”

Berta Soler, leader of Women in White, a group of wives and other relatives of jailed Cuban dissidents “met with Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Square in May 2013 and sent a letter to the pontiff through the nunciature and through friends. She asked the Pope: ‘When you come to Cuba could you listen to us even for a few minutes?'”

Just ahead of the papal visit, “the dissident leader reported arrests of the Women in White and other opposition activists. [E]xcessive force was used in some arrests …. She said that the Castro government is assembling ‘paramilitary mobs organized and financed by (the regime) to physically and verbally attack us.'”

The United States’ UN ambassador tweeted criticism of Cuban authorities in advance of Pope Francis’ visit.

Opposition groups in recent days have been reporting increased detentions of dissidents.

Cuban officials are offering a day’s pay, snacks and transportation to encourage state workers to line the pontiff’s route from the airport to the Papal Ambassador’s home. University students also have been recruited.

A respected Vatican reporter summarized Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba:

[H]omage to the Castro brothers. Pressed by journalists on the plane heading for Washington, Francis said no, no meeting with dissidents was planned, and he kept to the program.

And yet this was not something unthinkable from the start. A few weeks earlier, the Cuban regime had allowed American secretary of state John Kerry, visiting Cuba to reopen the embassy, to meet with roughly thirty dissidents.

The Castro police catalogued and screened everyone coming to Mass with Francis in Havana and the other cities, and peppered the crowds with informants.

In the nine discourses he gave in Cuba, Pope Francis used the word “freedom” only once, requesting it for the Church on the island together with “all the means necessary.” He paid repeated public homage to the Castro brothers and gave a friendly and admiring account of his private conversation with Fidel.

The pope’s trip to Cuba “raised great expectations, even as it antagonized a great many Cuban Americans who regard the Castros as anathema. Alas, these hopes evaporated quickly.” Independent journalist Yoani Sánchez “remarked that she could not understand how this pope could have ignored the vital issues of today’s Cuba during his visit. How could he honor Fidel Castro with an official visit, while ignoring the dissidents? Why couldn’t the pope who was so outspoken during his visit to the United States also speak out while in Cuba?”

Xi Jinping

Pope Francis is “the catalyst behind the latest push for a deal with China.”

In August 2014, the pope said, “I think of the great Chinese sages, theirs is a history of knowledge, of wisdom” and that he wanted to go to China “Tomorrow! Oh, yes!” The next month, Pope Francis issued an invitation to Xi Jinping to come to the Vatican and said he was willing to go to China.

In December 2014, “[The Chinese] know I’m available either to receive someone, or to go to China. They know,” the pope reiterated.

When the pontiff was in the U.S. in September 2015 following his trip to Cuba, he and Xi were in New York the same day. “The pope wanted to meet Xi and this message was communicated clearly to China.” He has not met Xi nor been invited to China.

In every year of Pope Francis’ pontificate, China is identified as a government which has “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom … including torture, degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons,” according to the U.S. State Department’s annual Religious Freedom report.

A case against China, filed in 2013 with an international tribunal, was settled on July 12. “The ruling paints a picture of an environmentally destructive, dangerously aggressive government that has no legal jurisdiction for its actions.”

Regardless, Pope Francis told Xi Jinping, “The world looks to this great wisdom of yours,” in a February 2016 interview and that “the world looks to China’s wisdom and civilization.” And again, “It is necessary to enter into dialogue with China, because it is an accumulation of wisdom and history.” The pope continued, “And the Catholic Church … has the duty to respect [this civilization] with a capital ‘R.’”

The Vatican began negotiations with the Chinese government in June 2014 and “stressed that the question of ordination must first be addressed before diplomatic ties can be established.”

All religion was outlawed when the Communist Party took control of China in 1949. The government later decided to accommodate five religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism – by putting them under control of the Communist Party. The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) was established but an underground Church remained loyal to the pope. Both groups of Catholics have their own bishops. Those in the CPCA were appointed by the government; those in the underground Church were appointed by the pope. Until now, both the Vatican and China have maintained their sole right to appoint (ordain) bishops. No pope until now has ever recognized the CPCA as a legitimate form of Catholicism.

The Chinese government had suggested in 2010 what would later be referred to as the “China model,” i.e. they select the nominees for episcopal appointment and the pope could choose from among them. No modern civil government has been granted this authority by a pope until now. In the two years following 2010, more CPCA bishops were ordained without the pope’s consent. Pope Benedict XVI’s response was to declare that the illegitimately ordained bishops had been automatically excommunicated.

In every official negotiation with the Vatican – November 2014, October 2015 and May 2016 – the Chinese government repeated their demand for the “China model” of selecting bishops.

The reports since May:

June 11: “[T]he Vatican is reportedly willing to accept new bishop candidates [who have] the approval of the Chinese government.”

July 14: “The pope is preparing to pardon eight bishops ordained by the CPCA and officially excommunicated …. The Vatican hopes a pardon would be interpreted by China as a goodwill gesture.”

Aug. 5: The current Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong Hon, formally announced: “Fortunately, after working for many years on this issue, the Catholic Church has gradually gained the reconsideration of the Chinese government, which is now willing to reach an understanding with the Holy See on the question of the appointment of bishops in the Catholic Church in China and seek a mutually acceptable plan …. The Apostolic See has the right to choose from the recommended list the candidates it considers as most suitable.”

Other Catholics did not view this as “fortunate.”

“Beijing’s proposal is limited to complete recognition by the Holy See for all official bishops (even illegitimate and excommunicated bishops), without any mention of the unofficial bishops and those in prison …. Is the Vatican ignoring them in negotiations to appease their Chinese counterparts?” asked Cardinal Joseph Zen Zi-kiun, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong.

A Chinese priest, already detained “many times,” said, “Rome may betray us, but I won’t join a Church which is controlled by the Communist Party … I will resign.” Another member of the underground Church declared, “If the independent church is no longer allowed, I will just go home and pray.” The director of ChinaAid regretted that this capitulation by Pope Francis would “be like a father’s betrayal of his own children … because the move will legitimize the Communist Party’s persecution, past, present and perhaps future.”

An op-ed by the British Catholic Herald written in April 2016: “[A] compromise with the Chinese government whereby they propose bishops which the Vatican then approves would be a huge defeat for the autonomy of the Church and for religious liberty, quite apart from throwing the faithful Catholics of China under the bus.”

Michael Sainsbury, an author specializing in the Far East, wrote on Sept. 16:

It is increasingly obvious to those who understand China that a deal with the Vatican … is part of an overarching, multi-faceted program of soft power projection by the Communist Party. [All soft power programs] are designed to convey a kinder, softer China to cover up the reality.

Under its legal system, China executes more of its citizens than any other nation on earth …. In doing a deal with Beijing, the Vatican would automatically expose itself to accusations of being complicit with such practices.

As the world is now seeing, China’s power projects can be far more successful than they should be. Its invasion, control and effective colonization of Tibet has been brutal but is complete.

With China’s move to colonize large swathes of the South China Sea, the world has become increasingly aware of what it is doing: building islands in the sea to aid its rapid militarization of the region – despite express promise that it would not do so ….

“This is what happened in Yalta and we saw the results,” Pope Francis said in February 2016. “The aim at Yalta was to ‘carve up the cake … dividing humanity and culture into small pieces.’” The pope was referring to the 1945 conference where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met to discuss ending World War II and planning for a post-war world. The pope demonstrated no comprehension of the war’s catastrophic humanitarian tragedy – 50 to 80 million killed plus untold millions more injured, dislocated, starved and the ensuing deaths from these other causes – which motivated the world leaders to make the best deal possible at the time.

”The great powers had photographs of the railway routes that the trains took to the concentration camps, like Auschwitz, to kill the Jews, and also the Christians, and also the Roma, also the homosexuals,” Pope Francis said. “Tell me, why didn’t they bomb those railroad routes?”

Because “historians disagree over whether a precise enough military strike would have been possible or effective in stopping people dying in the gas chambers.” Also, Roosevelt believed that the surest way to stop the killing of all innocent civilians was to use his limited resources in a way which would defeat Hitler as quickly and decisively as possible.

This accusation against the Allies has been voiced often by churchmen in deflecting criticism away from Pope Pius XII’s role during the war. Other than Germany, every other fascist nation and movement in Europe was backed by the Church (see clerical-fascism).

Pope Francis has refused to open the Vatican archives for World War II. Regardless, beginning in the mid 1990’s, other countries released their wartime records proving Pius XII’s fascist sympathies. Pius XII knew (Phayer, Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War p. 219) about the barbaric slaughter of Serbs, Jews and Roma (estimated at 700,000 including more than 74,000 children) by the Catholic Ustase in Croatia and still supported their leader, Anton Pavelic. (Phayer, p. 219) Pius XII also knew about (Phayer, pp. 196-199) and supported both rat lines helping fascist war criminals escape prosecution.(Phayer, p. 233)

“The Vatican was able to use deposits of stolen Nazi funds to finance these [ratlines] …. It would have been perfectly possible to channel funds to escaped war criminals in South America from Vatican Swiss bank accounts through the branches of Sudameris,” a South American bank in which the Vatican was heavily invested and “which in the eyes of the Allies was simply an Axis Bank.” (Pollard, Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy p. 202)

It is established history that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church supported the right wing military junta during the Dirty War (1976-83). The prelates knew that thousands – an estimated 30,000 Argentines – were murdered since they maintained many of the records.

Four months before his election as pope, Cardinal Bergoglio and his fellow prelates issued a statement: Los Obispos de la República Argentina, 104º Asamblea Plenaria, 9 de noviembre de 2012, absolving the Church. “We have the word and testimony of the bishops who preceded us about whom we cannot know how much they personally knew of what was happening. They tried to do everything in their power for the good of all, according to their conscience and considered judgment.” The bishops equated the “suffering” from “state terrorism” with “the death and devastation caused by guerrilla violence,” referencing the quickly-crushed left wing opposition. The bishops conclude: “For our part, we have cooperated with the law when we have been asked for information which we have. In addition, we encourage those with information on the whereabouts of stolen children or know clandestine burial sites, to recognize their moral obligation to go to the relevant authorities.”

Pope Francis’ “closest collaborator,” Cardinal Parolin, referred to the 19th century “Unequal Treaties” in an August 2016 speech: “This was the treaty with which Western powers – chiefly England, the U.S. and France – had forcibly imposed their colonial supremacy on China.” Parolin neglected to note that, “U.S. diplomat John Ward sought, and finally achieved through diplomatic negotiations, an exchange of treaty ratifications in 1859.” Or that “Russia signed a separate agreement, the Treaty of Aigun (May 16, 1858), by which Russia would have jurisdiction over the lands north of the Amur River from its junction with the Argun River to the Tatar Strait.”

In May 2016, Pope Francis criticized Western powers for attempting to export democracy to Iraq and Libya without paying attention to local political cultures.

He has never criticized Russia’s role in the Ukraine, Syria or human rights violations.

He is “silent over the victims of the Castro regime, the anguished cry of a Cuban exile. Not a word for the thousands of Cubans swallowed up by the sea while fleeing from tyranny. No call for the release of political prisoners.”

No acknowledgement from the pope or Parolin that “China is a country with an appalling human rights record and more specifically a country with a shocking record on religious freedom” or that “there is nothing remotely peaceful about Beijing’s rise to power … Since the international ruling on the South China Sea in July China has notably stepped up its presence in the disputed zone.”

Hong Kong’s Cardinal Zen responded to Pope Francis’ capitulation to China, but the same could be said for his “diplomacy” with Russia and Cuba with only slight modification.

Ostpolitik [for secular governments] makes sense, because here there is the possibility of some bargaining, trading economic gain for political concessions. But what do we have to bargain with those who only understand reasons of money and power? Can we sell the only thing we have: the spiritual power? ….

We must face the fact that the communist government is a true dictatorship! In a dictatorship regime there is no compromise, there is only total submission, slavery and humiliation. The Chinese communists, after they have killed hundreds of thousands, maybe they don’t need to kill so many nowadays. But the “state of violence” reigns, total denial of most basic human rights.

Who doesn’t know that today Chinese communists are ever more arrogant abroad and oppressive at home? … How can you reasonably hope in the success of the dialogue?

(Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/10/09/pope-francis-diplomatic-reach-exceeds-his-grasp-of-history/feed/6bettyclermontBishops Still Behaving Badly on Sex Abuse as Pope Francis Sets the Examplehttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/bishops-still-behaving-badly-on-sex-abuse-as-pope-francis-sets-the-example/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/bishops-still-behaving-badly-on-sex-abuse-as-pope-francis-sets-the-example/#commentsWed, 28 Sep 2016 08:57:41 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=11064]]>The clerical sex abuse scandal has revealed the core of corruption in the institutional Catholic Church. There have already been hundreds of thousands of victims around the world.

Since the systemic sexual abuse of children made national headlines in 2002, survivors (young people who had experienced child sexual abuse had a suicide rate that was 10.7 to 13.0 times the national rates) and their advocates have demanded essential reforms necessary to protect children in the future.

One is that the pope require that all criminal acts be immediately reported to the police. This is still optional according to Pope Francis. Another is that the pontiff hold bishops accountable. Pope Francis has never disciplined anyone for protecting child sex abusers, obstructing justice for the survivors or impeding measures to keep children safe because that’s what he does. So the scandals go on and on and on …..

On Sept. 21, 2016, Fr. Octavio Munoz appeared in a Chicago court on child pornography charges after police arrested him at a Maryland treatment center.

Last summer, Chicago Archbishop Blasé Cupich transferred Munoz from his assignment as a recruiter of young men for the priesthood to pastor at St. Pancratius Parish. When Fr. Kevin Hays, Munoz’ replacement, together with an archdiocese employee, went to inspect Munoz’ former living quarters on July 7, 2015, they found “a black Sony laptop … there was displayed a moving image on the screen that appeared to be running from a web cam. The image was of a young boy (engaged in a sexual act).”

The employee thought Hays would report this to the archdiocese. When he learned that Hays did not, the employee contacted the archdiocese a week later.

On July 17, the archdiocese hired a private investigator but did not contact law enforcement. From July 20 to July 28, private investigators went to Munoz’s home. “Their investigation uncovered a video that appeared to show two boys having sex” and “emails with ‘stories of child erotica.’” The investigators called the Chicago police and Munoz was removed from the ministry on July 28.

According to prosecutors, “as the police investigation heated up,” the archdiocese sent Munoz to Maryland for counseling without notifying authorities.

An archdiocesan spokeswoman said the archdiocese notified police that Munoz was in Maryland “though it was not immediately clear if police were told before an arrest warrant was issued Aug. 30, 2016.”

A large component of human trafficking is the “use of force, fraud, or coercion to control other people for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex. Pornography not only contributes to the demand for sex trafficking … but it also contributes to child exploitation.”

The promotion of Blasé Cupich as head of the Chicago archdiocese has been the pope’s only major appointment in the U.S. so far. Cupich is “a pastor totally in line with Pope Francis” and “reflects the pope’s style.” Both men have dreadful records regarding child sex abuse in their previous assignments (here and here).

The pope is also guilty of not notifying the police and heartlessness towards victims of child porn similar to Cupich.

In August 2013, Pope Francis removed his ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, for soliciting and engaging in sex with poor street boys. He did not notify the police or the public. A TV exposé brought Wesolowski’s crimes to the public’s attention.

The pontiff left Wesolowski a free man until September 2014 when the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Serra reported that Wesolowski was arrested by order of the pope because “there was a serious risk that the nuncio would be arrested on Italian territory at the request of the Dominican authorities and then extradited.” At the time, Wesolowski had more than 100,000 computer files of pornography. “The material, which is classified by type, shows dozens of young girls engaged in sexual activities but the preference is for males. Images show youngsters aged between 13 and 17 being humiliated for the camera, filmed naked and forced to have sexual relations with each other or with adults.”

Even under house arrest in the Vatican, Wesolowski was still able to access child porn on his internet. Wesolowski died unexpectedly before his Vatican trial began.

On Aug. 23, 2016, Pope Francis tweeted “’Human trafficking and prostitution are crimes against humanity,’ a phenomenon he has spoken out against time and time again.”

____

On Sept. 25, 2016, about 150 Catholic activists protested outside the cathedral in Hagåtña, Guam, concerning allegations of child sex abuse against the clergy. They demanded that Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai be removed. “All he’s doing is protecting the predators and protecting the fortunes of the Church rather than protecting the souls of the archdiocese.”

Pope Francis had placed Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron on temporary leave after multiple accusations of child sex abuse. He sent Hon as a substitute in the interim. Protesters also “will continue to advocate for the removal of Apuron from his position.”

Apuron’s future depends on an investigation and canonical trial by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, but he has not yet been charged with any crime.

Without any investigation or canonical trial, Pope Francis removed the “Bishop of Bling” of Germany “for spending 31 million euros of Church funds on his residence,” a South American bishop “for the greater good and unity of the Church and episcopal communion in Paraguay,” and a Spanish bishop over an alleged affair with his married secretary.

Without any investigation or canonical trial, Pope Francis excommunicated an Australian priest for supporting women’s ordination and same-sex marriage; also the president of the Austrian Catholic movement “We are Church” and her husband for celebrating Mass in their home without a priest.

On Sept. 18, 2016, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai circulated a petition around Catholic churches on Guam demanding that the governor veto legislation “which seeks to lift the statute-of-limitations for pursuing civil claims for child sex abuse. The petition is displayed along with a letter written by the archbishop.”

Regardless of their religion or none, “victims often need many years to overcome the pain of their abuse and time to obtain the courage needed to speak out about the abuse that they have suffered,” the bill’s author, Senator Frank Blas, said. Hon, however, said he would lobby [against the law] arguing it would have “damaging unintended consequences” for the Church in Guam.

The real fear is that this bill, if made law, will expose DOZENS of sex-abusing clerics on Guam. Worse (for him) still, victims will have the opportunity to find out WHAT church officials knew and WHEN they knew it.

The law will also most likely expose clerics who molested kids and are STILL WORKING IN CHURCHES. Priests like Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who *ahem* is still the Archbishop. (Note: The Vatican has done NOTHING to help Guam’s victims, properly punish Apuron, or end abuse. NOTHING.)

Since Apuron has now been accused of sexual abuse numerous times, Hon’s real problem isn’t money. His real problem is the exposure of an archdiocese that knew about abuse and abusers for DECADES.

Instead of calling the police, archdiocese officials silenced victims, promoted abusers, and conned every single Catholic on the island into believing that their churches were safe.

On Sept. 27, 2016, the Archdiocese of Agana issued a new statement encouraging anyone who knows about sexual abuse by clergy or others in the archdiocese, “today or in the past,” to contact the Church’s sexual abuse response coordinator, but not the police. The statement comes shortly after Gov. Eddie Calvo signed the statute of limitations bill into law.

____

On Sept. 26, 2016, Cardinal Timothy Dolan removed a priest accused of sexual abuse. “But the archdiocese has not shared its findings with the public [and] would not comment on where the disgraced priest has been living.”

“Children must immediately be made safe from predators like Monsignor John J. O’Keefe,” Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian said. “The archdiocese failed miserably in its supervision of O’Keefe, and now it is placing more children in potential jeopardy.

The secrecy of the Archdiocese of New York surrounding the sexual abuse of an innocent child by Monsignor John J. O’Keefe is another example of why statute of limitations laws must be changed to help sexual abuse victims heal and to protect innocent children,” Garabedian said.

It was reported in May that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan “spent $2M on major N.Y. lobbying firms to block child-sex law reform.” The Child Victims Act “would make it easier for child sex abuse victims to bring cases as adults, for about a decade.”

In June, “Roman Catholic legislators said they have been publicly shamed during Mass, called out in church bulletins and disinvited to parish events as the Philadelphia Archdiocese campaigns against a bill that would give victims of child sexual abuse more time to sue the Church.” Opposition to the statute of limitation reform, “was led by Archbishop Charles Chaput, by way of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference which he leads, and the heads of the Pennsylvania dioceses who dutifully follow orders.”

And why? It’s the fact that the bishops, the members of the hierarchy, will continue to do whatever they have to do, and what they have done for decades if not centuries. And that is to do whatever it takes to protect a powerful institution and its secrets.

When Pope Francis removed Peruvian Bishop Gabino Miranda Melgarejo for sexually abusing minors, he did not notify the police or the public. A Spanish lawyer first broke the news. A government prosecutor asked the pope for the information upon which he had based his decision to remove Mirada, but he refused.

Miranda is still a free man as far as I can tell.

____

Two weeks ago, there was more of the usual dishonest headlines: “Pope Francis’ push to end sexual abuse,” “Pope’s sex-abuse panel scores awareness victory in Vatican” and “The Catholic Church Is Taking A Big Step To Curb Sex Abuse.”

The sex abuse commission – created in December 2014 by Pope Francis the day after he was publicly criticized for refusing to provide information requested by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child – has finally done something.

The members addressed some Vatican departments and purportedly will be involved in a training course for new bishops. They will be instructed that “the single most important thing a bishop can do is to meet with and listen to survivors.”

(Note to readers: No accurate information on the global clerical sex abuse crisis would be available without the Abuse Tracker website. Please visit the website and follow the instructions to donate.)

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/bishops-still-behaving-badly-on-sex-abuse-as-pope-francis-sets-the-example/feed/1bettyclermontClinton: A More Formidable Opponent of the Pope Than Trumphttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/clinton-a-more-formidable-opponent-of-the-pope-than-trump/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/clinton-a-more-formidable-opponent-of-the-pope-than-trump/#commentsSun, 11 Sep 2016 10:56:48 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=10962]]>Most of us are familiar with the exchange between Trump and Pope Francis in February regarding the pope’s trip to Mexico. Trump said “Mexico got him to do it because Mexico wants to keep the border just the way it is.” The pope said “a person who thinks about building walls … is not Christian.” Trump responded, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

But Hillary Clinton courageously challenged a pope about his organization’s grievous denial of women’s rights.

In 1994, at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, recommendations “formed at the time seemed a strong international consensus that the most effective strategy for limiting population was providing women better access to education and reproductive health care, including contraception and safe abortion.” “[T]he UK’s international development secretary, accused the Holy See of steering a ‘morally destructive course’ that would lead to an increased incidence of illegal abortion, unwanted pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.”

At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, the debate was expected to “pit the delegations of many national governments against the Vatican and an assortment of Islamic and conservative governments.”

In the opening salvo of what is expected to be a major battle, Vatican delegation head Mary Ann Glendon said promoting women’s aspirations should not come at the expense of “undermining their roles within the family”

“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” is the name of the speech given by Clinton on September 5, 1995, and the phrase has continued to be used by the feminist movement. “The speech was courageous and considered path breaking to many in its demand for action.”

“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all … The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard,” Clinton told the assembled dignitaries.

Therefore, we can hope that Clinton will continue to challenge a Vatican where

She was George W. Bush’s ambassador to the Vatican and received an honorary doctorate from Opus Dei’s flagship university in Navarre, Spain.

Three months after being elected in March 2013, Pope Francis named Glendon as a member of a commission to study the Vatican Bank. In July 2014, the pope appointed Glendon to the bank’s board of supervisors along with selecting a host of other practitioners and proponents of vulture capitalism to manage his wealth.

Glendon was the only American Pope Francis appointed to his curia until he chose the celibate member of Opus Dei and former Fox News correspondent, Greg Burke, as director his Press Office.

Pope Francis is steadfast on HIV/AIDS and women’s reproductive rights

On June 8, 2016, Pope Francis’ ambassador to the UN stated the position of the Holy See on the Political Declaration, “On the Fast-Track to accelerate the fight against HIV and to End the AIDS Epidemic by 2030.” He repeated essentially the same stance the Vatican held in 1994: “the undeniable fact that the only safe and completely reliable method of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV is abstinence before marriage and respect and mutual fidelity within marriage.” The Vatican “does not consider abortion, access to abortion, or access to abortifacients [i.e. the morning-after pill which does not cause an abortion but rather prevents pregnancy] as a dimension of the terms ‘sexual and reproductive health,’ ‘sexual and reproductive health-care services’ and ‘reproductive rights.’” The ambassador also took the occasion to reaffirm that “gender recognizes the objective identity of the human person as born male or female.”

During his trip to the Philippines in 2015, “Pope Francis reaffirmed the Church’s ban on contraception, leading us to conclude that abstinence is his answer to rampant population growth and its consequential poverty and environmental destruction.”

Pope Francis “reaffirmed the Church’s virtually absolute condemnation of contraception” in his April 2016 exhortation, “Amoris Lætitia.” On abortion, he wrote: “that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which can never be considered the ‘property’ of another human being.” Consequently, “those who work in healthcare facilities are reminded of the moral duty of conscientious objection.”

While never as crude as Trump, the pope’s misogyny is often manifested in statements such as: women theologians are “strawberries on the cake,” Europe is a “grandmother who is no longer fertile and vibrant,” a nun should “be a mother and not an old maid!,” “a Church that seems more like a spinster than a mother,” “I am wary of ‘masculinity in a skirt,” “pastors often wind up under the authority of their housekeeper,” etc.

Choosing judges

During his trip to the U.S., Pope Francis had a private visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor to give his support for their lawsuit against the Obamacare provision for providing contraception coverage to employees. While the Supreme Court sent the Little Sisters of the Poor case back to the lower courts, the conservative press saw it as a “significant victory” because “when the court vacates the ruling you’re challenging, that’s a win.”

Additionally, “Sexual abuse of minors is the No. 1 reason why religious organizations in the United States went to court in 2015.”

So those issues, as well as the right of religious organizations to continue to discriminate against women, LGBTQI persons, and children under the guise of “religious liberty,” will be present in our courts for the foreseeable future. The president’s ability to select Supreme Court justices and other federal judges is one of the primary reasons Americans are planning to vote in this election.

Honduras

Clinton, however, did align with the Church in the 2009 coup in Honduras that “removed the democratically elected Manuel Zelaya and helped lead to a new era of repression and lawlessness. [D]espite the fact that various governments around the world, as well as the United Nations, condemned Zelaya’s ouster as a coup and called for his restoration as president,” Clinton did not. She has been widely condemned for continuing aid to the dictatorship which mounted the coup and succeeded Zelaya.

“Opus Dei participated actively in the coup against Zelaya.” The group was “headed by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, spiritual leader of the Honduran Catholics, who has not denounced the violation to the Constitution that the coup was, and has instead blessed it.”

In his first act as pontiff one month his election, Pope Francis chose Rodriguez Maradiaga as head of a group of cardinals to help him govern the Church . Rodriguez Maradiaga is usually described the pope’s “right-hand man” in the press.

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, has often spoken about how profoundly moved he was by his year of service in Honduras in 1980. Not surprisingly, he has remained silent about both Clinton’s and the Church’s role in the 2009 coup.

Also, not surprisingly, the issue of Pope Francis’ agenda of depriving women of their right to health care will not be mentioned during the campaign. However, we can count on a Democratic president and elected officials to uphold the promise that “Women’s Rights are Human Rights.”

(Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America. My appreciation to Gerald Slevin, Harvard-educated attorney and Catholic blogger, for reminding me of Clinton’s role in the 1995 Beijing conference and her potential as an opponent of Pope Francis’ global and national agenda against women’s rights.)

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/clinton-a-more-formidable-opponent-of-the-pope-than-trump/feed/4bettyclermontPope Francis Kowtows to Xi Jinpinghttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/pope-francis-kowtows-to-xi-jinping/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/pope-francis-kowtows-to-xi-jinping/#commentsSun, 04 Sep 2016 06:59:04 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=10579]]>Pope Francis and Xi Jinping came to power at the same time – March 13 and March 14, 2013, respectively.

In every year of Pope Francis’ pontificate, China is identified as a government which has “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom” defined as “including torture, degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons,” according to the U.S. State Department’s annual Religious Freedom report.

A case against China, filed in 2013 with an international tribunal, was settled on July 12. “The ruling paints a picture of an environmentally destructive, dangerously aggressive government that has no legal jurisdiction for its actions.”

“In the Chinese imagination, this is not subjugation of neighbors but simply restoration of the normal order … a return to the traditional concept of tianxia, with barbarians benefiting from Chinese civilization.”

Pope Francis told Xi Jinping, “The world looks to this great wisdom of yours.” He repeats that “the world looks to China’s wisdom and civilization,” in a February 2016 interview. The pope also “described the excitement he felt when he was about to enter Chinese airspace on the flight from Seoul to Rome in August 2014.”

During that in-flight news conference, the pope said, “I think of the great Chinese sages, theirs is a history of knowledge, of wisdom” and that he wanted to go to China “Tomorrow! Oh, yes!”

The next month, Pope Francis issued an invitation to Xi to come to the Vatican and said he was willing to go to China.

Pope Francis rejected a meeting requested by the Dalai Lama in December 2014 because Vatican negotiations with China were in a “delicate” phase. “China describes the Dalai Lama as a separatist and reacts angrily when foreign dignitaries meet him.”

Afterwards the pope repeated: “[The Chinese] know I’m available either to receive someone, or to go to China. They know.”

When the pope was in the U.S. in September 2015, he and Xi were in New York the same day. “The pope wanted to meet Xi and this message was communicated clearly to China.”

It was announced on August 5, 2016, that after more than two years of negotiations, the Vatican and Beijing reached a preliminary agreement whereby a government-controlled organization would prepare a list of candidates for bishop and the pope would choose from among them. No other civil government in the world has been granted this authority.

The pope has not been invited to China. He has not met Xi Jinping. He has never mentioned China’s aggression, “egregious violations” of religious freedom or any other human right for the Chinese. Beijing has made no concessions.

Two Catholic Churches

All religion was outlawed when the Communist Party took control of China in 1949 but was not eliminated. So the government decided to accommodate five religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism – by putting them under control of the Communist Party. The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) was established but an underground Church remained loyal to the pope.

Anyone professing a religion, however, is still barred from a government position and subject to persecution, torture, imprisonment and death.

Both groups of Catholics have their own bishops. Those in the CPCA have been appointed by the government; those in the underground Church have been appointed by the pope. Until now, both the Vatican and China have maintained their sole right to appoint (ordain) bishops. No pope up to now has ever recognized the CPCA as a legitimate form of Catholicism.

China has demanded that the Vatican cut off diplomatic ties with Taiwan before officially opening diplomatic channels with the Holy See. Taiwan has its own democratically elected government but mainland China considers it a province.

Pope Benedict XVI’s desire for some rapprochement seemed to bear fruit during China’s PR campaign in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics to appear more moderate and open to Western ideals. Benedict urged leaders in the underground Church and the CPCA towards dialogue and joint-liturgies. He even instructed the Jesuits to prepare for new missionary efforts in China. Any hope for a reciprocal conciliatory gesture from Beijing ended with the Olympics.*

The Chinese government suggested in 2010 what would later be referred to as the “China model,” i.e. they select the nominees for episcopal appointment and the pope could choose from among them. In the next two years, more CPCA bishops were ordained without the pope’s consent. Benedict’s response was to declare that the illegitimately ordained bishops had been automatically excommunicated.

Pope Francis’ Pontificate – 2014

In June, Chinese and Vatican delegations met in Rome. “The Vatican stressed that the question of [bishops’] ordination must first be addressed before diplomatic ties can be established.”

Pope Francis attended the Aug. 17 Asian Youth Day in South Korea. “This must be reported because it reflects the hard reality of Catholic life in China today.” Fifty five Chinese were prevented from attending “by various forms of ‘persuasion’ or were blocked at the airport … These young mainlanders risked careers, peace and security to be with the pope … Pope Francis knew all this when he spoke about China on the flight back from Korea.”

A CPCA official responded to the pope’s praise and eagerness to go to China by warning him that “China never allows foreign forces to interfere with religion.”

In November, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs repeated the 2010 terms for an acceptable agreement – the government selects episcopal candidates and the pope chooses among them – “adding that a response is expected in early 2015.”

During 2014, “at least 100 people have been arrested, detained or summoned and 35 people injured, mostly while trying to protect churches from baton-wielding police.” Communist Party cadres, “ordered to achieve results against religion within a year,” had destroyed dozens of churches and more than 400 crosses were removed.

Dalai Lama

On Dec. 12, 2014, Pope Francis rejected a request for a meeting with “the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, because of the ‘delicate situation’ with China, the Vatican says.” Even a pro-Vatican publication noted the decision was made because “the Holy See’s relationship with the Chinese government is currently going through a very delicate – a crucial in fact – phase.”

“I am deeply saddened and distressed that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, should give in to these pressures and decline to meet the Dalai Lama,’” South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.

On Dec. 15, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China “noticed” the pope’s decision not to receive the Dalai Lama and that “China will continue to hold constructive dialogue with the Holy See.”

China has been waging a “calculated and systematic strategy aimed at the destruction of Tibet’s national and cultural identities,” often personified by their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The pope’s decision was a victory for China. “[T]he attention of public opinion in the West to the Dalai Lama is going down by the day,” a Chinese official said on Dec. 19.

On Dec. 26, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued its 2015 working plan. “China will continue its practice of electing and ordaining bishops independent of the Holy See.” Furthermore, “the administration would monitor all religious personnel serving in Church venues and would instruct religious venues and seminaries to open their individual bank accounts.”

“Repression in China has worsened since Xi Jinping became president in 2013” according to a Jan. 13, 2015, report by the Freedom House. There have been “harsher policies towards minorities including Tibetans, Christians and Uyghurs.”

During a Jan. 19 in-flight press conference, Pope Francis was asked: “Can you explain why you didn’t receive the Dalai Lama when he was in Rome a little while ago, and where do relations with China stand?” The pope responded: “It’s a habit in the protocol of the Secretariat of State not to receive heads of state and people at that level when they’re taking part in an international meeting here in Rome … That’s the reason he wasn’t received. I saw that some newspapers said I didn’t receive him out of fear of China. That’s not true.” The pope also said, “How do the relations with China stand? [T]hey know I’m available either to receive someone, or to go to China. They know.”

Although the statement that the Dalai Lama was refused an audience due to “delicate” negotiations with China was made by the Vatican, technically the pope was correct at the time about not meeting “people at that level” who were attending international meetings in Rome. The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu had been in Rome to attend the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, an honor denied the pope despite a campaign launched by Argentinian leaders. Later, Pope Francis did meet with the presidents of the European Parliament, Commission and Council who were attending an international meeting in Rome. But that group gave him a prize “for work done in the service of European unification.”

China warned the U.S. on Feb. 2, 2015, that it was “opposed to any country meeting the Dalai Lama in any manner” after the White House announced that Obama would deliver remarks at a Feb. 5 prayer breakfast that the Dalai Lama was due to attend. During the event, the president said, “I want to offer a special welcome to a good friend, His Holiness the Dalai Lama [w]ho inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings.”

2015: Persecutions and negotiations

Between April and July 2015, authorities closed or raided more than a dozen Protestant churches and schools and 20 house churches were forced to close. One pastor believed the central government wants the underground Christian denominations under its own “Chinese style” Church approved by the Communist Party.

May 21: Xi reiterated the leadership role of the Communist Party in religious matters, warning against foreign forces. “His targets included Xinjiang Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and the Vatican.”

May 27: A priest of the underground Catholic Church was arrested and still remains missing. Bishop Julius Jia Zhigu, who has a history of arrests and releases, was held and released without explanation. “Xi Jinping’s recent statement on religions has boosted extremist views among local authorities who now feel entitled to attack,” according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Aug. 4: The Vatican accepted the ordination of Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin who was chosen by Beijing. The action came amid “wide protests among both Protestants and Catholics” at the government’s efforts “to rein in Christianity’s influence … As of August 2015, at least three Catholic bishops and six priests of the underground Church remain in Chinese prisons, one since 1997. [M]ore than 1,000 Protestants in the country are being detained for unauthorized religious activity and have been given prison sentences in excess of a year.”

Sept. 28: In spite of his unsuccessful attempt to meet with Xi Jinping in New York, during the flight from the U.S. to Rome, Pope Francis said, “[F]or me, having a friend of a great country like China, which has so much culture and has so much opportunity to do good, would be a joy.”

Oct. 11: A Vatican delegation flew to Beijing for a meeting “amid a crackdown on religion in China,” and after an Oct. 8 article in the state newspaper pronounced that all religious affairs in China should be handled by the Chinese and there was no need for foreign involvement.

In an interview published while the Vatican delegation was in China, Pope Francis declared, “China is always in my heart!” His Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told journalists “everything we do, we do with a view … to establish normal relations with China.”

The Vatican delegation “did not discuss sensitive issues” like the continued detention of Catholics noted Hong Kong Bishop Emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun. Zen considered the delegation’s visit to a CPCA bishop and its seminary as “acts of homage imposed by Beijing.”

During the talks, Beijing proposed the “China model,” with added caveats. The pope “has a weak veto only in ‘severe’ cases, which must be justified if used.” If the pope’s “justifications are considered ‘insufficient,’ the [government’s] Council of Bishops may decide to proceed anyway.”

Beijing also demanded the Vatican’s recognition of illegitimate and excommunicated bishops. “Beijing has no intention of negotiating, only making demands,” Zen noted.

2016: Persecutions and Negotiations Accelerate

In late January, two Protestant pastors were arrested and held in a “black jail” (without access to legal representation) after criticizing Communist Party persecution. In one case, the government replaced the leadership of his church. In the other, the pastor’s wife was also arrested.

Pope Francis’ (in)famous greeting to Xi Jinping – “The world looks to this great wisdom of yours” – was published on Feb. 2. “The Catholic Church, I would say, has the duty to respect [Chinese civilization] with a capital ‘R,’” the pope noted.

An official in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs stated that the Chinese government “has taken note” of the papal interview. “We hope that the Vatican can take a flexible, pragmatic attitude to creating conditions for improving ties,” he added.

Feb. 25: A Christian attorney appeared on state-run television in what appeared to be a coerced confession. Arrested six months earlier shortly before he was to meet with U.S. State Department officials about religious freedom violations in China, he appeared underweight and hunched over. He admitted that he had broken Chinese law, disrupted social order and endangered state security. “The government has also brought formal charges against nearly 20 human rights lawyers who had worked against the church demolitions and authorities have broadcast coerced ‘confessions’ from several of them.”

Feb. 25: “Beijing is clearly taking yet another major step to control religion as President Xi Jinping’s rule becomes ever more regimented and intolerant of perceived threats,” according to a report. “Beijing has started to assign certificates detailing the secular name, religious name, national ID card number and a new, unique faith number to Buddhist monks.” Catholic and Taoist priests, Protestant and Islamic clergy “will surely face orders to follow suit in the near future. Those religious personnel without certificates will be barred from engaging in religious activities, according to the State Administration for Religious Affairs … The Chinese Communist Party is restricting, harassing, torturing and in some cases even killing members of these religious groups … By its very nature, the party simply doesn’t consider views counter to its own, and its knee-jerk reaction is always to use force. ”

Feb. 27: An editorial published “with great prominence” by a government publication sees “a sign of an ‘acceleration’ concerning relations with the Holy See.” The editorial also suggested the “Chinese model” of episcopal selection.

March 19: The Vatican announced that its diplomatic representative to Taiwan had been reassigned. “This could mean that the Holy See wants to leave the post vacant while in the process of normalizing relations with People’s Republic of China.”

Underground Bishop Thomas Zeng Jingmu was harassed by authorities right up to his April 2 death. Officials instructed Catholic leaders not to attend his April 6 funeral. The 5,000 mourners attending the funeral were surrounded by 1,000 officials with the state security apparatus.

April 4: A Chinese priest, already detained “many times,” said, “Rome may betray us, but I won’t join a Church which is controlled by the Communist Party … I will resign.” Another member of the underground Church declared, “If the independent church is no longer allowed, I will just go home and pray … There is only one road for us Catholics.” The director of ChinaAid regretted that any capitulation by the pope would “be like a father’s betrayal of his own children … because the move will legitimize the Communist Party’s persecution, past, present and perhaps future.”

April 23: At a Beijing conference attended by top leaders, Xi Jinping said that religious groups must submit to the leadership of the Communist Party. “Veteran China-watchers say such comments from senior government officials often signal a new cycle of harassment and vigilance.” Xi’s comments “follow a tightening of religious space that has seen bans on the wearing of veils and beards in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang.”

“A breakthrough came in April” when the Vatican and the Chinese agreed to set up a working group which met in May. The group “has been charged with hammering out technical solutions over the ordination of bishops” and “how to resolve the issue” of eight excommunicated bishops.

May 4: Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, said he hoped that “the blossom [of relations with China] will flourish and bear good fruits for the good of the same China and of all the world.”

June 11: “[T]he Vatican is reportedly willing to accept new bishop candidates [who have] the approval of the Chinese government.”

June 12: Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who spent four years under house arrest for quitting the CPCA on the day of his ordination, “confessed” his errors. After his rejection of the CPCA, he was stripped of his title and forced to undergo communist indoctrination classes. Ma’s priests and nuns were also forced to attend “reeducation classes.” The Vatican “has never morally backed Bishop Ma Daqin even though he sent many messages to the pope. [H]e only got an embarrassing silence.” The Holy See remained silent on Ma’s about face. “Some suspect the Vatican views the episode in positive terms … Many Catholics and friends of the bishop believe he was forced to write that article.” Currently, Ma “remains under a sort of house arrest, and is subject to monitoring by security services.”

June 30: Hong Kong Bishop Emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, addressed his blog to mainland Catholics: “[I]f your conscience tells you that the content of whatever agreement [between the pope and China] goes against the principle of our faith, you should not go with it.”

July 10: “Efforts to increase the influence of the Communist Party are clear in a campaign thought to be aimed at the Catholic Church even as talks with the Vatican continue about a historic deal over the appointment of bishops”

July 12: A ruling by an international tribunal against China “essentially squashes any justification China might have had for harassing ships, blocking Filipino fishermen or interfering with other nations’ attempts to explore for oil off their coasts. Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia have also taken exception to China’s growing presence in the region … Beijing has long maintained that it will ignore today’s ruling. Indeed it resorted to insulting the tribunal with state-controlled media.”

July 14: “The pope is preparing to pardon eight bishops ordained by the CPCA and officially excommunicated … The Vatican hopes a pardon would be interpreted by China as a goodwill gesture.”

Aug. 5: Current Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong Hon, announced that under a preliminary agreement the Vatican has accepted the “Chinese model” of episcopal appointments.

Cardinal Zen responded on Aug. 4 to the “likelihood” of an “unacceptable agreement” over appointment of bishops.

“Today a specter appears on the horizon, of a statement coming right from the authority of the Church, that tells [Catholics] to change course. What was declared as opposed to the doctrine and discipline of the Church will become legitimate and normal; everyone will have to submit to the government that manages the Church; everyone will have to obey bishops who until today are illegitimate and even excommunicated …

I am the voice of the voiceless not only to protest against the Communist Authorities, but also to put certain questions to our Roman Authorities …

Can a religion submit itself to the complete control of an atheist government?

We must face the fact that the communist government is a true dictatorship! In dictatorship regime there is no compromise, there is only total submission, slavery and humiliation. The Chinese communists, after they have killed hundreds of thousands, maybe they don’t need to kill so many nowadays. But the “state of violence” reigns, total denial of most basic human rights.

Who doesn’t know that today Chinese communists are ever more arrogant abroad and oppressive at home? …

How can you reasonably hope in the success of the dialogue? Will the Chinese communists give up a little of the complete control of the official community of Catholics they firmly hold in their hands? In case the dialogue fails, they lose nothing. But they come willingly to the dialogue hoping to bring home a signature, the final blessing of the Popes on the present abnormal state of that Church, which, objectively, is already schismatic.

Ostpolitik is about politics; in that field it makes sense, because here there is the possibility of some bargaining, trading economic gain for political concessions. But what do we have to bargain with those who only understand reasons of money and power? Can we sell the only thing we have: the spiritual power?

[Rome asserts] “We assured the ecclesiastical hierarchy!” But what hierarchy? Puppet bishops, not shepherds of the flock but ravening wolves, officers of the atheist Governments! “We found a modus non moriendi!” The Churches [behind the Iron Curtain] have not been saved through Vatican diplomacy but thanks to the unswerving faith of the simple faithful!

April 5 op-ed by the British Catholic Herald: “[A] compromise with the Chinese government whereby they propose bishops which the Vatican then approves would be a huge defeat for the autonomy of the Church and for religious liberty, quite apart from throwing the faithful Catholics of China under the bus … Does the Vatican seriously believe that the Communist party is suddenly going to stop persecuting Christians? … In gaining diplomatic relations, which may be purely cosmetic, it may sacrifice a great deal, including its own moral credibility.”

Aug. 10: “60 Chinese Christian migrants from 10 different denominations, all fearing persecution back home, have applied for political asylum in the Czech Republic … Several Catholic priests and religious, as well as scores of Protestant pastors and lay believers from all denominations, are either in detention or have been released only on the condition that they play ball.”

Aug. 15: “President Xi Jinping said that religious groups must submit to the leadership of the Communist Party … The country’s new law regulating foreign NGOs makes China’s climate profoundly less friendly to non-Chinese religious organizations [and] some foreign Christian groups have been expelled.” There has also been “major restrictions on Islamist religious activity … the central government has reasserted control over Buddhist practices in Tibet [and] the Chinese government began demolishing parts of the world’s largest Buddhist institute in July.”

Aug. 24: Parolin gave “watertight confirmation of the important step in the dialogue between Beijing and the Holy See.” Parolin said the primary aim is “to make the lives of Catholic faithful in China simpler and foster reconciliation between the so-called ‘official’ and ‘clandestine’ communities. The claim that there are two different Churches in China does not correspond to historical reality,” Parolin stated.

Aug. 26: Pope Francis announced his intentions for the 50th World Day of Peace to be celebrated on Jan. 1, 2017, as if he couldn’t wait. He included “recognition of the primacy of diplomacy,” acting “within what is possible,” and having “a realistic political method.”

Aug. 27: Parolin gave a speech: “Today, many are the hopes and expectations for new developments and a new season in relations between the Apostolic See and China, to the benefit not only of Catholics in the land of Confucius but of the whole country, which boasts one of the greatest civilizations on the planet. I would dare to say that this will also be to the benefit of an orderly, peaceful, and fruitful coexistence of peoples and nations in the world … This is a matter of writing a page unheard of in history.”

Aug. 29: A newspaper linked to the Beijing government:

Obstacles remain in the way of diplomatic ties between China and the Vatican, experts say, as the Vatican expressed its hope [Aug. 27] of establishing formal relations with China … China, however, is not eager to establish formal ties with the Vatican, the only European country that has not established such relations with China, because it is not an urgent issue which will affect China’s international status if it is not dealt with immediately.

Another major dispute between China and the Vatican involves the appointment of bishops … The Vatican expressed its deep regret to China after the latter consecrated several bishops in 2010 without its approval, saying that it was a “painful wound upon ecclesial communion and a grave violation of Catholic discipline.” The situation improved when Zhang Yinlin became the first bishop recognized by both Beijing and the Holy See in August 2015.”

Aug. 29: During the daily press conference held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the spokesperson was asked to comment on Parolin’s Aug. 27 speech. “China is always sincere about improving its relations with Vatican, and has made relentless efforts to this end. The current channel of dialogue and contact between the two sides runs well and effectively. Following certain principles, we would like to work together with the Vatican side for constructive dialogues, meet each other half way and strive for the continuous development of bilateral relations.”

Conclusion

Pope Francis wants to be a player in international geopolitics as a “moral authority.” Parolin is reportedly considering creating an “Office for Papal Mediation” for that purpose. An accord with China would be “writing a page unheard of in history” and bolster the pope’s diplomatic credentials.

Frank Ching, a prominent commentator specializing in Chinese affairs, “warned there is nothing remotely peaceful about Beijing’s rise to power … Since the international ruling on the South China Sea in July China has notably stepped up its presence in the disputed zone.”

Yet Pope Francis and his Secretary of State have said that their dialogue with China will bring “a more fraternal world society and with a greater level of social equity,” “is the only way to achieve peace,” can be an “example for the world as a whole, building bridges of fraternity and communion everywhere,” would have “immense benefits for world peace, very, very big benefits,” and that “the blossom [of relations with China] will flourish and bear good fruits for the good of the same China and of all the world.”

Pope Francis even went so far as to admonish other governments that “fear of the rise in China’s economic and geopolitical influence ‘is not a good counselor.’”

Frank Ching: “In its imagined world, the realization of Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream will place China once again at the center of the world, after a couple of centuries of being disrupted by Western imperialism.”

And so, Parolin’s Aug. 27 speech included “spanning almost two centuries during which the imperialist and colonialist policies of Western powers stood in the way of Holy See-China relations, with their connivance, pressure and blackmail, hindering the entire apostolic and missionary activity of the Catholic Church in China.”

Pope Francis said he places his faith “in a China that can make an increasingly important contribution to the consolidation of peace balances,” compared to “what happened in Yalta and we saw the results. [C]arving up the cake, as in Yalta, means dividing humanity and culture into small pieces.” The pope was referring to the 1945 conference where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met to discuss ending the war and making plans for a post-war world.

It might be better for the Chinese people and “peace balances” if the pope also studied the 1938 Munich Pact signed by Hitler, Mussolini, French Premier Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain which handed Czechoslovakia over to Germany. Chamberlain declared that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.”

P.S. The Dalai Lama is the most admired religious figure in the world.

]]>https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/pope-francis-kowtows-to-xi-jinping/feed/2bettyclermontPope Francis at Auschwitz But Not Where Catholics Slaughtered 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Roma in WWIIhttps://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/pope-francis-at-auschwitz-but-not-where-catholics-slaughtered-700000-serbs-jews-and-roma-in-wwii/
https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/pope-francis-at-auschwitz-but-not-where-catholics-slaughtered-700000-serbs-jews-and-roma-in-wwii/#commentsSat, 30 Jul 2016 08:06:55 +0000http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/?p=10277]]>From the barbarity in Croatia during World War II there is a direct historical link to the atrocities committed in Argentina’s Dirty War, and certainty of the Catholic Church’s collusion. It’s time for Pope Francis to open his secret archives and make amends.

Jasenovac in Croatia was the third largest World War II concentration camp in Europe by number of victims. It was operated by the Catholic and Nazi-allied Ustasha government. Wartime Croatia has been called “one great slaughterhouse.”

The prisoners – mostly Serbs, Jews and Roma

had their throats cut with specially designed knives, or they were killed with axes, mallets and hammers; they were also shot, or they were hung from trees or light poles. Some were burned alive in hot furnaces, boiled in cauldrons, or drowned in the River Sava.

Here the most varied forms of torture were used. Finger and toe nails were pulled out with metal instruments, eyes were dug out with specially constructed hooks, people were blinded by having needles stuck in their eyes, flesh was cut and then salted. People were also flayed, had their noses, ears and tongues cut off with wire cutters, and had awls stuck in their hearts. Daughters were raped in front of their mothers; sons were tortured in front of their fathers.

Said plainly, in the concentration camps at Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska, the Ustasha surpassed all that even the sickest mind could imagine and do in terms of the brutal way people were murdered. …

More than 74,316 children were killed. During the Second World War, the only place where there were special camps for children was Croatia. …

Estimates of the total numbers of men, women and children killed there range from 300,000 to 700,000.

“700,000 in a total population of a few million, proportionally, would be as if one-third of the US population had been exterminated by a Catholic militia.”

For the Ustasha (Ustase, Ustaša), “relations with the Vatican were as important as relations with Germany because Vatican recognition was the key to widespread Croat support.” (Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (2000) p. 32)

Ante Pavelic, the “Butcher of the Balkans,” had already been convicted in France for planning the 1934 assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou when he was received in a private audience by Pope Pius XII in May 1941 shortly after becoming dictator of Croatia. “After receiving the papal blessing, Pavelic and his Ustasha lieutenants unleashed an unspeakable genocide in their new country. But Pius XII refused to cut his ties with Catholic Croatia and in 1943 once again imparted the papal blessing on Pavelic, who by that time was a genocidal killer.” (Phayer, Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War (2008) p. 219)

“It is well known that many Catholic clerics participated directly or indirectly in the Ustaša campaigns of violence.” (Phayer, 2000, pp. 34-35)

Pope Pius XII could not plead ignorance to these atrocities. “Both the nuncio [Vatican ambassador] and the head of the [Croatian] Church, Bishop Alojzje Stepinac, were in continuous contact with the Holy See while the genocide was being committed.” (Phayer, 2000, p. 30)

Vatican Bank

“Approximately half of what [Vatican agent] Fr. Krunoslav Draganovic took out of Croatia was in the form of gold coins, most of which had been looted from Jewish and Serbian victims of Ustasha terror.” (Phayer, 2008, p. 215) Along with gold taken from the pre-war Yugoslav treasury, the coins were transported by truck through Austria and Italy into Rome.

Based on accounts by Emerson Bigelow, in the U.S. Army reporting to the U.S. Treasury Dept, and U.S. intelligence agents William Gowen and James Angelton, “There is no reason to doubt that the Ustasha gold ended up as a deposit in the Vatican Bank.” (Phayer, 2008, p.217) In addition, Gowen later gave testimony at a U.S. federal court in San Francisco that his investigation in 1947 led him to believe that the Vatican was “implicated at the highest level.”

In an April 2014 “Open Letter to Pope Francis,” William Dorich, whose father and 16 other relatives were burned alive by the Ustasha and Catholic priests, he asks the pontiff to open the Vatican archives from World War II and make restitution for the gold and other assets stolen from the Ustasha victims and deposited in the Vatican.

Dorich was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit first filed in 1999 against the Vatican Bank by elderly Ustasha victims and their heirs for compensation. When their claim was rejected by U.S. courts for lack of jurisdiction, their attorney, Dr. Jonathan Levy, began petitioning directly to the Vatican, including a letter to Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

“As the postwar years rolled by, the deposited gold had to be ‘laundered’ or changed into various currencies to finance an evolving sequence of tasks. The immediate need was for upkeep for many dozens of Ustasha exiles. False papers had to be fabricated. Some of the funds had to be used for the paying for passage of war criminals.” (Phayer, 2008, p. 217)

Ratlines

As an Allied victory became more certain, two distinct ratlines developed, both operated by Catholic clerics.

Austrian Bishop Hudal’s ratline began to assist highly-placed German and Austrian war criminals. To escape Germany, the best route lay across the Alps to Italy. The American OSS was able to trace support of Hudal’s operation to the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission of Assistance and expatriated Germans and Austrians in Argentina. That Hudal was a notorious Nazi sympathizer was well known in the Vatican. (Phayer, 2008, pp. 196-199)

Due to a “long-time relationship with Himmler’s SD espionage service,” (Phayer, 2008, p. 206) Hudal was able to assist monsters – just a few named here – to escape to South America: Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Franz Stangl, Eduard Roschmann, Alois Brunner, Walter Rauff.

Pius XII “made no effort to remove Bishop Hudal from the Austrian refugee program under the Pontifical Commission of Assistance until 1952, at which time all, or almost all, of the perpetrators of World War II atrocities who had not been apprehended had made good their escape.” (Phayer, 2008, p. 200)

Numerically, the largest ratline was operated by Fr. Draganovic, and “reveals the direct involvement of Pius XII himself.” Draganovic had served as an army chaplain with the rank of lieutenant colonel at Jasenovac. After the collapse of the Ustasha regime, Draganovic returned to his base in Rome where he established escape routes for Croatian war criminals. This was accomplished largely through the Croatian seminary, St. Jerome’s, located near the Vatican. (Phayer, 2008, pp. 231-232)

A large number of clerical and lay Ustasha war criminals took cover in St. Jerome. The Vatican wanted Draganovic to care of the criminals and Draganovic served the Vatican as the front man in this venture. As one U.S. Army intelligence report put it, “in many instances it was hard to distinguish the activity of the Church from the activity of Draganovic.” (Phayer, 2008, p. 233) “All intelligence agents involved in the case, regardless of nationality, believed by 1947 that Ante Pavelic had found refuge in a Vatican property or properties.” (Phayer, 2008, pp. 222-223)

“The Vatican was able to use deposits of stolen Nazi funds to finance these [ratlines].” Also, “It would have been perfectly possible to channel funds to escaped war criminals in South America from Vatican Swiss bank accounts through the branches of Sudameris” a South American bank in which the Vatican was heavily invested and “which in the eyes of the Allies was simply an Axis Bank.” (Pollard, Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy p. 202)

Both ratlines moved war criminals through the port of Genoa to Barcelona, and from Spain to Argentina. (Phayer, 2008, p. 232) In June 1947, “an American diplomat working in the Buenos Aires embassy wrote to the State Department deploring the fact that ‘the Vatican and Argentina [are conniving] to get guilty people to haven in latter country.’” (Phayer, 2008, p. 194)

Based on previously secret files, “investigators of the central war criminal authority in Germany estimated 9,000 war criminals escaped to South America, including Croatians, Ukrainians, Russians and other western Europeans who aided the Nazi murder machine. Most, perhaps as many as 5,000 went to Argentina.”

Argentina

The Peron government (1946 to 1955) was “so keen to have the war criminals that it sent recruiting agents to Italy to persuade them to come. Like all the other institutions that helped former SS men such as Eichmann get away, the Peron government was well aware of the crimes they had committed.”

Argentina and the Third Reich were “closely linked.” Peron had a secret postwar organization that provided a safe haven to war criminals, giving them landing permits and visas. Many were even given jobs in Perón’s government.

Pavelić arrived in Buenos Aires on November 6, 1948, on an Italian merchant ship and was employed as a security adviser to Peron. In 1950, Pavelić was given amnesty by Peron when the Yugoslav government asked for him to be extradited as a war criminal. He was allowed to stay in Argentina along with 34,000 other Croats, including former Nazi collaborators.

“Some Jewish groups in Argentina saw a continued Nazi influence in the armed forces and the police long after the first Peron government. They claimed there was persistent anti-Semitism at an official level, and that neo-Nazi propaganda was rife.”

The Dirty War – a period from 1976 to 1983 – shocked the conscience of the world. In the aftermath of a military coup, the junta and their hired killers “disappeared” an estimated 30,000 suspected of opposing them. There were also “child murders, mass executions and a harrowing array of other daily war crimes.”

“Disappeared” refers to one of the many types of Nazi atrocities copied by Latin American dictators. In 1941, Hitler ordered the Nacht und Nebel Erlass (Night and Fog Decree) designed to make anyone “deemed to be a threat … vanish without a trace into the night and fog” and murdered in secret. A victim who is murdered or executed in public becomes a martyr and public opinion is raised against the perpetrators.

“Uncertainty about the fate of those abducted sowed terror in society,” wrote Juan Méndez of Human Rights Watch. The situation “forced friends and relatives to renounce and ignore old ties, intimidated parents and siblings.”

“The Nazi influence was very much a part of the [Dirty War]. Pictures of Hitler hung in torture chambers and the torturers sometimes played Hitler speeches while torturing. While Argentina had the largest concentration of Jews in Latin America, Argentine society, particularly the Church and the military, were bastions of anti-Semitism.”

Navy School of Mechanics, Buenos Aires

After Jasenovac, Pope Francis’ next stop should be at ESMA – acronym for Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (Navy School of Mechanics) – “ground zero for torture during the Dirty War” and now a memorial.

“ESMA was the largest of nearly 400 detention and torture camps that operated in Argentina, where almost 5,000 people died.” Victims were trade unionists, students, those who helped the poor – anyone thought to be “leftist.”

Of the 30,000 who perished, about 1,900 were Jews – or more than 6 percent of the victims, even though Jews numbered only about 1 percent of the population. Argentina’s approximately 300,000 Jews suffered in greater proportion, because so many were members of that country’s intellectual elite and its left-wing …

“Jews suffered all types of torture,” at ESMA, “but there was one that was especially sadistic and cruel: A tube was inserted into the victim’s anus or in a woman’s vagina and a rat would be let loose inside the tube. The rodent would try to get out and eat the internal organs of the victims.”

Ana Maria Careaga was sixteen at the time of her disappearance. She was recently married and three months pregnant. “As soon as we arrived at the camp, they stripped, and began torturing me. The worst torture was with the electric prod – it went on for many hours, with the prod in my vagina, anus, belly, eyes, nose, ears, all over my body. They also put a plastic bag over my head and wouldn’t take it off until I was suffocating.”

“Our bodies were a source of special fascination,” Astelarra recounted, shuddering at the memory. “They said my swollen nipples ‘invited’ the prod, eased the passage of current.”

It was rare for a pregnant detainee to survive; most were killed soon after giving birth and their babies sold to “proper” couples, usually from the military or police.

Typically, ESMA inmates were “left hooded the whole time.” In addition to being “burned and poked and prodded, they would have had objects painfully inserted into their orifices. As they screamed, they would have heard cries of others being tortured nearby.”

In 1995, former navy Captain Adolfo Scilingo confessed that “between 1,500 and 2,000” ESMA inmates “were disposed of” by putting them on a military plane and then – stripped naked, drugged but alive – dropped from a height of about 13,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean.” Scilingo reported that the Catholic hierarchy “approved [of this] as a Christian form of death.” When Scilingo felt anguished after directing these death flights, he would seek counseling from Catholic chaplains at ESMA.

“In out-of-the-way streets, on isolated highways, along the Atlantic Ocean and Plate River [Rio de la Plata] corpses periodically were discovered by civilians. Riddled with bullets, missing digits and teeth, most of the bodies were too ravaged to be identified.

When the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights visited ESMA in 1979, they found no sign of prisoners. With the aid of the Church, the Army had hidden them in the “Island of Silence,” a vacation retreat that belonged to Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu, Archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1975 until 1990.

Church and the Dictatorship

Like the Ustasha and Jasenovac, the junta was supported by the Catholic Church and the torture and deaths at ESMA and other detention centers were known by the Vatican, Argentine hierarchs and Pope Francis, then Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The military had presented themselves as the defenders of “tradition, family and property … The internal enemy was [declared] more dangerous than enemies from abroad because it threatened the fundamental Western and Christian values of Argentine society.”

“Patriotism came to be associated with Catholicism,” said Kenneth P. Serbin, a history professor at the University of San Diego who has written about the Roman Catholic Church in South America. “So it was almost natural for the Argentine clergy to come to the defense of the authoritarian regime.”

In his book, El Silencio (The Silence), Horatio Verbitsky reports that the Catholic Church actively participated in the dictatorship while having full knowledge of the human rights violations being committed at the time. The secret relations that El Silencio revealed also include the collaboration of the secretary of the military vicariate, Bishop Emilio Graselli, and his program of reeducation of the prisoners of ESMA.

Gen. Jorge Videla’s junta “had a close alliance with the Church where they served as confidants to the military in that period … During his tenure, Videla expanded the Church’s economic benefits” and authorized a generous “retirement package for high-ranking Church officials.”

Archbishop Adolfo Tortolo, vicar of the armed forces, said that “General Videla adheres to the principles and morals of Christian conduct. As a military leader he is first class, as a Catholic he is extraordinarily sincere and loyal to his faith.’ He also said that when confronting subversion, the military should take on ‘hard and violent measures.’”

Cardinal Raul Primatesta made it clear at the start of the dictatorship that “the Church wants to understand, cooperate” with the junta. Primatesta prohibited the lower clergy from speaking out against state violence.

In 1997, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women who protested against the disappearance of their children, petitioned the Italian government to prosecute Cardinal Pio Laghi, Pope Paul VI’s ambassador to Argentina, as an Italian citizen.

“As nuncio from 1974 to 1980, Laghi silenced international protests, falsely stated to relatives that he knew nothing of the fate of victims and expelled from the country priests and religious who protested the ‘disappearances’ and tortures.” Laghi, the Mothers charge, “was seen in the clandestine detention centers. He was consulted as to whether prisoners should be spared or killed, and they asked his advice regarding ‘the Christian and compassionate way to liquidate them.’ … He participated actively with the bloody members of the military junta and he undertook personally a campaign designed to hide the horror, death and destruction. … He was one of those who governed the country from the shadows.” Laghi escaped prosecution on the basis of his diplomatic immunity

Laghi was particularly close to Admiral Emilio Massera, head of ESMA. “They played tennis together almost every day. Massera was convicted in 1985 of human rights violations and again in 1999 for disappearances. He was also charged with abducting babies of women who went into labor or suffered involuntary caesarian births while in prison.”

Like Pius XII, Paul VI was kept informed by Argentine hierarchs. “On April 10, 1978, prelates of the Argentine Bishops Conference all went to the president’s mansion where they typed a summary of the dialogue held with Videla and sent it to the Vatican.”

Bergoglio and the Dirty War

While Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio (later Pope Francis) was the Jesuit provincial of Argentina, the Jesuit Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires awarded an honorary doctorate to Massera on November 25, 1977. It was “inexcusable” for Bergoglio to honor Massera, head of ESMA where “thousands of young Argentines were tortured and murdered in a reproduction of Auschwitz,” Roberto Pizarro, Dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Chile and rector of University Academy of Christian Humanism wrote. For Bergoglio to have “cultivated a relationship” with Massera is a “stain” on his record for which “Argentines, the Jesuits and the two hundred billion Catholic in the world deserve an explanation,” declared Pizarro.

Witness to the Truth: The Complicity of Church and Dictatorship in Argentina (1986) by Emilio F. Mignone “exposes the ‘sinister complicity’ between the Church and the military.” Mignone wrote that before the 1976 coup, Archbishop Adolfo Tortolo worked out a deal with the dictators that bishops would be consulted before a priest was arrested. The army “did the dirty work of cleaning up the inside of the Church,” that is, getting rid of “leftist” clergy, brothers and nuns. Churchmen could give a “green light” for those they wanted abducted while offering their protection to those they wanted spared.

The part Bergoglio played in the abduction and torture of his priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalic, was first published in Mignone’s book. Mignone’s daughter was “disappeared” along with seven other young volunteers by Navy commandos from a Buenos Aires shantytown in May 1976. They had been working alongside the Jesuit priests, Yorio and Jalics, who were taken a week later but were later released after being tortured.

By agreement with the government, priests were “licensed.” “A week before the arrest of the two priests, Archbishop Juan Carlos Aramburu had withdrawn their ministerial licenses without reason or explanation. Because of various expressions heard by Yorio in captivity, it was clear to him that the Navy interpreted Aramburu’s decision and, perhaps, some criticism from his provincial, Jorge Bergoglio, as an authorization to take action against him. Most certainly, the military had warned both Aramburu and Bergoglio of the supposed danger that Yorio posed,” according to Mignone. He thought Bergoglio’s criticism “served as part of the basis for the arrest, imprisonment and torture of the Jesuit priests.”

Mignone died in 1998, Yorio in 2000. Yorio’s siblings, Graciela and Rodolfo, repeated their brother’s accusation that Bergoglio had given a “green light” to their abduction as did Jalics’ siblings. Another Jesuit present at the time, Juan Luis Moyano Walker, confirmed that Bergoglio did not protect his priests working with the poor. Jalics issued a statement that Bergoglio had not turned them over to the military, but he was silent as to whether Bergoglio had facilitated their abduction. The only person actually present at the time who confirmed Bergoglio’s assertion that he tried to help Yorio and Jalics was Alicia Olveira, a personal friend.

In 2005, the military chaplain said that the Minister of Health should be thrown into the sea because of his progressive views on contraception. “It doesn’t take much effort at all to imagine what that must sound like to the ears of an Argentine with any sense of history,” historian Ernesto Semán noted. The government asked for the chaplain’s removal. Cardinal Bergoglio refused.

A series of interviews with Videla from 2010 were published in July 2012. He confirmed that “he kept the country’s Catholic hierarchy informed about his regime’s policy of ‘disappearing’ political opponents, and that Catholic leaders offered advice on how to ‘manage’ the policy.” Videla said that his “relationship with the Catholic Church was excellent, very friendly, honest and open.”

Church leaders had little choice but to respond when Videla’s interviews were made public. As cardinal primate, Bergoglio would have approved such an important declaration. The statement, Los Obispos de la República Argentina, 104º Asamblea Plenaria, 9 de noviembre de 2012, absolved the Church: “We have the word and testimony of our elder brothers, the bishops who preceded us about whom we cannot know how much they personally knew of what was happening. They tried to do everything in their power for the good of all, according to their conscience and considered judgment.” Videla’s statement was “completely divorced from the truth of what the bishops were involved in at that time.” The bishops also equated the “suffering” from “state terrorism” with “the death and devastation caused by guerrilla violence,” referencing the quickly-crushed left-wing opposition. The bishops conclude: “For our part, we have cooperated with the law when we have been asked for information which we have. In addition, we encourage those with information on the whereabouts of stolen children or know clandestine burial sites, to recognize their moral obligation to go to the relevant authorities.”

Four months later, when Pope Francis was elected and the initial reporting about the new pontiff questioned his cooperation with the junta, the Vatican press office issued a statement that the “accusations” came from “left-wing anticlerical elements to attack the Church.”

In 2015, when Chileans protested Pope Francis’ appointment of a bishop due to his covering up dozens of clerical sexual abuse cases, the pope called them “lefties.”

Opening the archives

After taking office, Pres. Nestor Kirchner made it a government priority to pursue justice by holding trials of those accused of human rights abuses committed during the Dirty War

Cardinal Bergoglio was called to testify twice. The first was in November 2010 during a trial for ESMA officials. María Elena Funes – a former detainee at ESMA and a lay volunteer who was kidnapped along with Yorio and Jalics and, like them, later released – had testified that they were abducted in May 1976 after Bergoglio removed their protection. Bergoglio was called as a witness.

The second time was September 2011 during a trial for officials who stole babies. The five-month pregnant Elena de la Cuadra was kidnapped in 1977 and “disappeared” at ESMA. She was killed after giving birth and her baby was given to one of the favored families. Her father had gone to see Bergoglio twice asking for help, but was referred elsewhere.

The Vatican Embassy kept a secret list of thousands of people who “disappeared.” Laghi confirmed in 1995 that he knew of some 6,000 cases. A priest “discovered a second list of 2,100 ‘disappeareds’” kept by Tortolo, vicar of the armed forces.

In both his testimonies, Bergoglio told the court he would make Church records available. But neither Bergoglio nor other prelates provided any of the documents.

As pope, Bergoglio said he would produce the documents promised in his testimony in April 2013, April 2015, and March 2016. This last time, Pope Francis’ spokesman said that first the records needed to be studied and agreement reached with the Argentine Bishops Conference. Then they would be released only by “specific legal questions requested by rogatory [a formal request from a court to a foreign court for some type of judicial assistance] or matters of a humanitarian nature.”

In spite of the iron curtain dividing Europe at the time, John Paul II returned to Poland less than eight months after his election. Benedict XVI went to Germany only four months after his election although it was a practically obligatory that he go to the World Youth Day in Cologne. In any case, after a year and a half as pope, Benedict made a visit to his birthplace in Bavaria.

On February 18, 2016, a reporter asked: “Holy Father, when are you going to go to Argentina?” Bergoglio responded: “China. (laughs) To go there. I would love that. I would like to say something just about the Mexican people …”

(Betty Clermont is author of The NeoCatholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America)